


Yellow Eyes and Wicked Lies

by ILoveDragonsALot



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Outbound Flight - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Ahhh I love the Chiss, Angst and Tragedy, Assassins, Chiss (Star Wars), Chiss Ascendancy (Star Wars), Chiss Politics, F/M, Fluff (Not immediately), Genetic Altering, Hold on there buddy, I hope you're not squemish, I shall add more tags, I'm probably going to rewrite this AGAIN, Imperial Academy, Let's love Thrass because why not, Lightsabers, Multiverse, My hand slipped and whoops it's dark, Sparring, THRASS IS ALIVE PEOPLE, The Empire is Terrible, Thrass is the older brother, Thrawn is suspicious, Training, We need Thrass, Why Did I Write This?, Why is love so complicated?, cool weapons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-01-29 21:42:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 46,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21417130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ILoveDragonsALot/pseuds/ILoveDragonsALot
Summary: Okay this fic is a mess and imma rewrite it.Cheers,The Frustrated Author
Relationships: Thrass | Mitth'ras'safis & Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo, Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo & Eli Vanto, Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo & Original Female Character(s), Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 42





	1. In the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> This is the proper version of Yellow Eyes and Wicked Lies. Please do not replicate this story.  
Disclaimer: I do not own the Star Wars characters in this story. I only own the original characters.
> 
> Warning:  
The following chapter contains violence/anxiety attacks.
> 
> I hope you enjoy. Let me know in the comments!

_Sometimes we wish our lives to be more exciting. _

_ We look around us, assuming our lives can be improved and through that improvement, enjoyed. We believe that our comfortable lives, in a warm home with access to almost any knowledge, is not enough. That we must try to seek adventure, seek a meaning in life that our current lives do not hold. Perhaps this is true. _

_ But often when we find ourselves wishing for something, it finds us. _

_ Just not in the way we thought we wanted it. _

It was a late Friday evening when they came for her. Her parents had gone out for dinner, likely to discuss something obscure, and her younger brother was staying with a family friend for the night.

She was thirteen, old enough to stay at home. She had finally sat down after pacing back and forth across the kitchen tiles, and had begun to re-read one of her favourite books.

Regardless of the quiet, she kept her ears and eyes open.

It was a perfectly normal evening.

The night was silent, and the flowery curtains blocked out the harsh outside lights. Almost imperceptible music drifted from two small speakers in the lounge, bouncing lightly off shiny pine-wood walls, reaching the ears of the lone reader. The slight smell of rice and pan-fried chicken still hung in the air from her empty plate.

It was a perfectly normal evening.

Her small computer notified her of an email, and she rose smoothly from her chair, tapping in the password over flat keys, book placed to the side.

Just her friend Nick, sending her a photo of a cat edited with human features. She let a smile touch her own features and debated whether to send a message back. It was likely he would ask what she thought if she didn’t.

It was a perfectly normal evening when she heard the first footstep.

Too early for any family members to be back, unlikely to be a friend. Her older brother lived elsewhere and was on a hunting trip.

Instinct kicked in.

She slowly shut the computer’s lid and sank to the floor, crawling behind the kitchen drawers underneath the bench, which was what the table was behind. She could not be seen from the hallway as long as she was there. Very carefully, she calmed her breathing, different possibilities racing through her head. Was that why the farm was so deathly quiet? How had they known she was home alone? Perhaps she was getting robbed, or maybe someone was looking for her. She might have been hearing things…

But she didn’t make those kinds of mistakes.

The footsteps intensified, and whoever it was didn’t care how loud they were. Not a robber, then. This person was too confident.

A murderer? But why would someone want to murder her?

The person was definitely wearing boots, and some sort of loose clothing; she could hear the swish of fabric and the measured tread of someone who was very sure of themselves. She didn’t dare glance around the corner, down the hallway.

Her ears felt like they were aflame and her breathing that she was desperately trying to control and the panic attack threatening to cloud her judgement were very close to breaking out of their cages.

And then she noticed the breathing.

Measured artificial breaths, sounding like someone was breathing through an asthma inhaler.

The whole scene felt like a tiny eternity, but by the time the person had reached the edge of the lounge, it had only been several seconds.

“Commander,” a deep, robotic voice boomed. “Where is the girl?”

Her breath caught in her throat. She knew that voice. Oh, did she. She had often wondered how his sharp-edged black helmet had worked. Maybe she was hearing things. It was the best explanation. But if she wasn’t…

Several coarse expletives raced through her head, and she wished she could shout them at him in an attempt to keep her dignity before she died.

“My Lord,” another masculine voice answered, filtered, but more human than the first. “The information we received stated she would be here, sir.”

“I want Shaira Derison found, Commander. Do not disappoint me.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

She got a sense that they were both turning to leave when the one referred to as ‘lord’ commanded: “Wait. I sense-”

Shaira didn’t give him time to finish. She shot out from behind the drawers and across the carpet, aiming for the front door. Unfortunately, this would put her directly in the line of any fire. 

She didn’t intend to get hit.

From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the two to find there were actually four; three stormtroopers and him.

It was Vader, the murderer. He was here, in her universe.

_Damn _would be putting it lightly.

A stun shot barely missed her, and she rolled to avoid a second one. She darted back to her feet, almost to the door. A carpet burn stung on her elbow.

She was a step away when an invisible force slammed into her back, and in the last second, she twisted herself around so her right shoulder could take the impact as the wall met her body. The blow jarred her violently. The three stormtroopers had apparently decided that they wanted to try hand to hand, and were advancing on her quickly.

Vader stood passively in place, watching.

Good, she could deal with punches better than guns. Or so she thought as one stormtrooper lifted his blaster.

She flung herself sideways, her shoulder throbbing painfully. The stormtrooper next to the one who had fired pressed down the gun and yelled “Don’t shoo-”

He didn’t expect Shaira to leap forward and smash her fist across the side of his helmet. He staggered backwards, knocking the shoulder of the stormtrooper who had just attempted to speak. Her knee swung into that one’s groin and he grunted in pain, and as the third tried to knock her over the back of the head with his blaster, she ducked, grabbed his arm and snapped the elbow in one swift motion. He screeched, Shaira’s stomach lurching slightly at the sight of his right arm dangling uselessly.

She hadn’t ever expected to do that in real life.

The first was recovering quickly, so she flicked out her left leg and swept his feet from under him, but the move cost her. The second got a solid hit into her jaw, and she stumbled backwards, trying not to shout in pain.

She knew it was showing in her eyes, though. She was losing the advantage of surprise.

The third was the weakest, so she went for him first. She charged at him head-on, but at the last moment swerved to her left, on his now-useless side.

She used her right heel to slam into the back of his right knee, seriously disadvantaging his right side. He fell back into the second trooper, white armour clashing loudly.

Darth Vader still stood and watched.

The second had apparently decided enough was enough and fired off a stun shot, just as Shaira shoved the third man in front of him.

He went down hard.

In the moment of the second’s shock, she wrenched the gun out of his hands and violently bashed it over the back of his helmet, knocking him senseless. The first she simply pulled the trigger on.

Only when the barrel of the blaster swung to the black-clad figure did he react.

His right hand flicked out as the rings of blue shot towards him, reversing them in the blink of an eye. They hit her squarely, her back going rigid, eyes rolling back in her head.

She was out before she hit the ground.

* * *

The first thing she registered in her mind was _hard_. 

Still alive, then.

She didn’t open her eyes, instead deciding to wait and hear what was going on. She kept her breathing deep and regular while she began to piece back together what had happened. 

She’d been shot by a stun blast, her headache informed her. And another detail came to the forefront of her mind: she was sprawled across a hard sort of ground. Something similar to metal, as it was cold against her cheek. She must’ve been there for only a short time if the metal hadn’t warmed up from her body heat yet.

The third thing she noticed was that there were people. Very _close_ people. She could smell that hair gel one of her friends used…

“Is she dead?” a familiar voice asked.

“Bruh!” another replied. “You dumb? She’s breathing, you idiot.”

“It _ does _ look like she’s dead though,” a third voice piped up.

“Shut up,” a fourth, quiet voice hissed. “They’ll hear you.”

“What, the guy with the red stripes on his face? If he hadn’t jumped me, I woulda-”

“Died,” the fourth voice cut in. “You would’ve died.”

“Everyone cut it out!” a fifth voice growled. “Gees, you motherfu-”

“Watch your language, Adam,” Shaira muttered through a numb cheek, her eyes still closed. “And listen to Ethan, Corban. Shut it.”

“You did look like you’d died,” the third voice, Corban, said. 

Korah, the first voice and his twin jumped in. “I told you-”

“Shut up,” Shaira cut in again. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“Actually,” a very welcome voice stated. “I think that mean bruise on your jaw is the thing giving you the headache.”

Her head vaulted up. “Nick!”

He grinned smugly. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“Don’t ruin it,” Shaira said, her mind abruptly slipping into high alert mode. “Who’ve we got?”

Her eyes began adjusting to the room they were in, her gaze taking in all the details.

“Me, Corban, Ethan, Korah, Max, Adam, and Mr Sulky over there who they call Fergus,” Nick listed. “And I swear-”

“Don’t swear, Nick, it’s bad for your mental health,” Shaira said absently. “What happened to you guys?”

“Well,” Nick began. “I was with some of the bros down Hedison Street when these creeps jumped us.”

“Describe them.”

“Ummm… there was this skinny chick in a witch’s hat and a mask. She had a creepy laugh. Then there was this other guy with a triangular hat and whitish eyes. He was kinda fat. And then another guy that wouldn’t shut up, just like Max-”

“Bro!” Max spoke up. “Don’t be ratchet!”

Nick continued. “And the guy was skinny like the witchy lookin’ chick with a knight’s helmet.”

Shaira hummed in thought, piecing together the details. “Any weapons?”

Fergus spoke up from the corner he was sitting in. “Lightsabers. Red ones.”

She unconsciously tapped her fingers on the floor, the bruises on her jaw aching dully. “Fifth brother, seventh sister, eighth brother,” she proposed calmly.

“Who the hell’s that?” Ethan spat.

“Inquisitors,” she replied.

Korah seemed to realize something, his mouth dropping open and his face draining of any humour. “Oh fu-”

“Language!” Shaira roared.

Ethan butted in. “We’re all going to die.”

Adam laughed mirthlessly. “I fail to see how some weird names can be that bad. You’re just weak.”

Shaira turned to him, her cold mismatched eyes of orange-brown and black boring holes through his ego. “They’re trained killers.”

This aroused collective murmuring among her friends.

Adam raised his eyebrows sceptically. “And how-”

Shaira sighed. “Someone explain it to him. I’m still planning our grand escape.”

Korah filled him in, Adam’s face turning from snooty arrogance to understanding they were on death’s door in about thirty seconds. 

Fergus twisted around to face Shaira. “Who got you, snake-eyes?”

Shaira pulled herself up fully and crossed her pale legs, brushed golden-brown hair out of her face and flicked her fringe away from her eyes. “One, don’t call me snake-eyes. Two, what if I don’t feel like informing you?”

Fergus’s lip curled, his eyes glittering with disgust. “The Grand Inquisitor got Korah and Corban. The other three got Nick, Max, Adam and Ethan. The fourth sister knocked me out. So who caught you?”

There was a pause.

“Vader,” she said simply. The unease roiling in her stomach began to surface again, and she didn’t bother hiding it.

“Vader?” Ethan repeated, fear sparking in his dark blue eyes. “We should just kill ourselves now.”

Shaira frowned. “Let’s not lose it just yet.”

“Easy enough for you to say!” Adam yelled. “Not all of us are as soulless as you!”

“Hey!” Nick shouted. “Knock it off!”

Ethan’s face drained of colour. “We’re all going to _ die_.”

Max snorted. “At least it’ll be exciting.”

Corban and Korah glanced at each other, their twin language sparking between them. Neither looked amused.

Fergus’s disdain intensified as he got ready to put in his own opinion-

“Someone’s coming,” Shaira dropped in.

The room went dead silent, everyone straining their ears.

Max raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth… to have Ethan slap his hand over it. Max gave him a glare. Then bit his hand.

Ethan slapped him across the side of his face and mouthed something colourful. Max smiled back.

Adam shot them ‘the look’.

As the steps intensified, everyone’s eyes lasered onto the door, no one daring to breathe. The steps were light; not Vader’s, at least.

They passed the door without so much as a misstep and faded quickly until they were no longer detectable.

Everyone breathed out slowly, relief filling the room. Max broke the silence first, as he often did.

“Congratulations on not dying, guys! It would’ve sucked-”

“If we had to die together?” Ethan offered. “Yeah, that would have sucked.”

Shaira’s eyes were still locked onto the door, filled with thought.

“What is it, Shy?” Nick questioned.

“This is a cargo hold. There are marks on the floor from crates, and there is no inside surveillance, meaning it was never intended for prisoners. It was also not built for people, as there are no benches or seats. And it hasn’t been used for a while, even though there is no dust.”

“Meaning?” Corban asked.

“This is only temporary. Our captors have only been in ownership of this place for a very small amount of time. If they were mercenaries, this place would be used more often. If they were going to kill us, they would’ve done it already. We have something they want.”

“Totally off-topic,” Max inched closer to them. “But are you secretly a military spy? I know you’re thirteen and all, but-”

“You wish,” Nick grunted. “I’ve known her since I was five.”

“So your wedding’s planned?” Max asked innocently.

“Please go on,” Ethan said.

Nick shot Max a look enough to kill someone the moment they made eye contact and Max studiously ignored it.

Shaira drew light circles on the floor, then inspected her finger. “Black paint, not dust. Quite old black paint. There are also small flecks of wood. I think we’re in a warehouse.”

“Definitely military,” Max confirmed.

Nick stood up and loomed over Max. “Shut. Up.”

“Okay, okay, okay, I was just joking!” Max stammered.

Nick sat down again, turning his back on the others. Fergus had his eyes fixed on Shaira, still brooding over an unfinished grudge or something rather.

Shaira stared emptily at her finger, the gears shifting behind her eyes. “I think…” she hissed quietly. “We have something far worse than death awaiting us.”


	2. Now They Come for Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy people! Second chapter! Yes! Let's have some tension and stress because you should never forget that the Empire is horrible! And damn do I love Max as a character.  
And I've made the Fourth Sister a once-Mandolorian, so her muttering was Mando'a.  
Translations:  
Mando'a  
Be’kar traa sad’etha akaanir. - Those idiots can't even fight.  
Ugh, alaliir ti’cira? - Ugh, beaten by children?  
Fe naa! - Ridiculous!
> 
> Warning - Violence and reference to abuse

It was well into the night, her tired eyes informed her. Still, she kept awake. She would not let them catch her unawares.

Nick had insisted he stay up with her and help watch, but even he was now snoring inelegantly. Still, Shaira watched.

And waited.

And listened.

There had not been any steps for a long time, which was strange because Shaira had been keeping track of how many times someone had passed the door. Their schedule had been consistent, until now.

Shaira leapt to her feet. It had been too quiet.

She padded over to Nick, placing a hand carefully over his mouth. And jabbed him mercilessly in the ribs.

His hazel eyes flew open with a muffled “Guh!”

She swiftly withdrew her hand.

“What was that for?” he whispered loudly, his face twisted with irritation.

“Wake up the others. I think our captors are about to make their next move,” Shaira hissed. 

“You’re just paranoid,” he grumbled.

Shaira glared at him, and he raised his hands in defeat. “Okay, okay… I’m going. You get to wake Fergus up, though.”

Shaira rolled her eyes and stormed over to Fergus’s corner. She kicked him sharply in the calf and grinned evilly when he started, his arms flailing around.

His styled blond hair and green eyes somehow still managed to look ugly with he was in a bad mood. “You little shi-”

“Fergus. Shut up,” Ethan said, wiping sleep from his eyes. “So why the hell are we awake?”

“Shaira has paranoia,” Max confirmed. “Must have been those military operations.”

“I think our captors are going to make their next move,” Shaira growled, daring Fergus to say something.

“Huh. How do you figure?” Adam asked, flexing his fingers.

“They’ve stopped passing the door. There have been six shifts that are about half an hour apart, according to Nick’s watch. It’s been about fifty minutes and nobody has come past that door,” she explained, pointing to the door. “And I also think when the stormtroopers come get us they’re not going to be gentle.”

“Stormtroopers?” Corban repeated sceptically.

“What did you do?” Nick asked at the same time.

“I _ may _ or may not have knocked out three of them. And broke someone’s elbow,” she mentioned, softly rubbing the dark bruise across her chin. The image of Vader watching silently was seared into her memory, his smooth mask reflecting the kitchen lights. It had been a perfectly normal evening.

And now it will never be the same.

* * *

They stood up against the wall, Fergus muttering under his breath and Nick’s gaze resting heavily on Shaira.

She had explained that if they could surprise whoever came to get them, they could lock them inside and hopefully escape while the others came to see what had happened. It all depended on their communication and if the ones coming to retrieve them were stormtroopers. If they were Inquisitors, they would simply cut their way out with their deadly red blades. Her friends wouldn’t get far if that happened.

She was counting on the sheer arrogance of the sort-of-Sith-but-not-really. That all-too-familiar icy, empty feeling in her gut reminded her of the dire seriousness of the situation. If she had a breakdown now, she probably wouldn’t live through it to learn from it.

No mistakes. Just death.

Reality began to set in. She had these peoples’ lives in her hands. Her pale, trembling hands. A thirteen-year-old girl with trust issues and anxiety and no place in a normal world. They were counting on someone who had had more excitement from books than the real world.

And they didn’t even know it.

She could shut down right in front of them, and the only thing they’d see was a blank stare.

Her shaky breathing reached her ears, and she forcefully slowed it. Repeated the mantra she had memorized for herself.

_ I am Shaira Derison. _

_ I am not perfect, but it is my flaws that make me myself. _

_ I do not show emotion, but that does not mean I do not feel it. I am human, and I have humanity. _

_ Worry is not my weakness, it is my strength. My anxiety has given me the greatest gift of foresight, to foresee the future through skill of possibility. _

_ And if I die, I shall die with dignity. _

She felt a pleasantly warm calm wash through to her bones, soothing the cold ache in her joints from the concrete floor. 

_ Seriously though, this is _crazy.

Fergus’s persistent muttering was, unfortunately, threatening to break the effects of her self-inspiring speech. Did this guy ever shut up?

Nick beat her to it. “Hey snarky, do you ever shut it?”

Fergus looked up, his hands clenching into fists, eyes glittering in anger. “You could completely knock her out, and yet you take orders from her. She’s a _ loner_.”

“Um, hello?” Max called. “I’m one of her friends. Do I look like nobody to you?”

“I couldn’t knock her out, snarky. We became friends because I tried to kick her and she punched me,” Nick said, effortlessly ignoring Max, who imitated a heart-broken person, tracing imaginary tears down his cheeks. “And I don’t take _ orders_, you idiot. I just want to stay alive. We could always arrange a human sacrifice if you don’t want to be helpful.”

“I volunteer Fergus,” Corban and Korah said in unison, their faces completely unsmiling.

“Yup,” Adam confirmed, and Ethan murmured his agreement.

Max nodded enthusiastically.

Nick acknowledged the support and turned back to Fergus. “If you think you have friends here, you’re wrong. Shaira?”

She stepped forward, smoothly weaving around Nick. She crossed her arms as she came to a halt in front of Fergus, and looked him up and down. Her height added to half a head taller than he was.

“I bet you see more than what you’re worth, weirdo,” he spat.

With an icy calm, she replied: “Your worth is less than my average running time, and that’s barely a digit.”

Corban made a quiet ‘oof’ under his breath and Max smirked and whispered: “You just got _ roasted_, bro.”

The right hook was a cheap shot. And cheap shots had so many tells it was hard not to tell _ them_.

She ducked as she had done with the third trooper, and grabbed his arm, but this time not to break it. Just to teach him not to do it again.

Nick had jolted forward to help but Shaira growled: “Don’t.”

Nick stepped back tensely.

In the blink of an eye, she had spun Fergus around, locked his arm around his neck, and slammed him facefirst against the wall. He shouted a curse and threw his head back, narrowly missing Shaira’s face. She used her free arm to press against his neck to stop him from doing it again. 

Her features were still completely calm as she hissed through thin red lips: “If you try that again, I will leave you here to die.”

She could feel his neck go rigid, and he attempted to wrench his arm out of her grip, but she tightened her fingers, digging in her sharp fingernails. He snarled in pain and tried twisting around and pushing out from the wall. He was unsuccessful.

In a sudden move, she let go and stepped cleanly away. Fergus, surprised by the sudden change in force, fell backwards and landed awkwardly on his side, his right wrist sporting angry marks from her nails. Green eyes clouded with murderous intentions. Fists clenched to a frosty white.

She gave him a mocking smile, mismatched eyes narrowed and thick eyebrows lifted slightly to emphasize the glare. “Do not become a liability.”

“Damn,” Max put in. “You do defence?”

She snorted, breaking eye contact with Fergus. “No.”

“You better be glad she doesn’t do self-defence,” Ethan muttered, his eyes glued to the floor.

Nick placed a hand on her shoulder as Shaira turned away. There was a heavy trace of concern in his rich hazel eyes and an unspoken question. 

She shrugged. “I’m fine. You can’t please everyone.”

He pulled her away from the others and bent down slightly to whisper in her ear. “I’ve known you for ages, Shy. What’s up?”

She gazed up at him with troubled eyes. “What if I’m wrong?”

“You’re never wrong.”

“I was wrong about my dad,” she muttered, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“You were four at the time. What can a four-year-old kid do?”

“Tell him to act like a father and not a bully.” She paused. “Have the courage to live without fear of tomorrow.”

Nick stared at her with a fiery intensity. “That was not the same person. We grow from our mistakes. Or from what we didn’t do. What we failed to do yesterday we can do today.”

She chuckled sadly. “You were always so much better at speeches than I was.”

“And you aced the piano.”

“True,” she answered, her forehead creased in a frown. “This is crazy.”

“What is?”

“_This_,” she said, gesturing to the room and the people in it. “We make a mistake, we die. It’s so much worse than what I normally cope with. So I’m going to apologize.”

It was his turn to frown. “What on Earth are you apologizing for?”

“For being me. For knowing your mum had left you and I was too scared to say anything to comfort you.”

“Hold on,” he said. “You knew about that?”

She smiled, but it held pain. “I see everything. And you are always hungry, so when you broke your eating pattern, I knew something was up.” The pause also held pain. “It’s the things I don’t see that come to haunt me.”

“Dammit, Shy,” Nick hissed, pulling her into what they liked to call the ‘bro hug’. She hesitated a first, but then wrapped her arms around him, his strong chest rising and falling. They could have been siblings if not for the difference in blood. “You’re so pessimistic.”

“I’m not pessimistic, I’m logical,” she mumbled into his chest. “We really should go back to the wall in case the stormtroopers come storming in. Pun intended.”

Nick dropped his arms, a smirk forming on his lips. Shaira’s hand darted up and ruffled his messy brown hair, Nick letting out a little ‘hey!’ and shoving her playfully.

Adam interrupted them. “If you lovebirds are done” -Nick raised an eyebrow- “don’t we have stuff to do?” His finger jabbed towards the door, and then towards Fergus.

“So, you have any last words?” Ethan asked the group as Nick and Shaira rejoined them.

“Yes,” Shaira said. “Max, go for the stomach. Nick, ‘cause you’re so damn tall, go for their heads. Fergus, use your speed. Ethan, trip them up. And Corban and Korah, talk them to death.”

Corban and Korah both grunted in disagreement.

“I’m just kidding, hammer them from both sides with your fists. A fight is often won in the first few hits, so make it count.”

She twisted back to Nick for confirmation, noticing his eyes were a little shinier than usual. _ He’s probably just tired_.

He nodded, and Shaira let out a breath of relief. “Now we just need to wait.”

“And try not to die,” Ethan added seriously.

“Yeah, and that.”

* * *

It did not take long before they came. Soldiers of death dressed in white. There were three, all grasping their E-11's like they were their tickets to another life. They were pointed down partially, so it was definite that they wanted their prisoners conscious. Unfortunately, that was going to be right back at them.

Shaira idly wondered whether their superiors knew how lousy their combat training was as she trekked down a well-lit corridor with one well-worn black blaster in her left hand, set on stun. Nick and Adam had the other two guns, and the others jogged quietly behind them. Adam brought up the rear, and Nick was up the front with her. Korah was sporting a pinkish bruise across his left arm, and the others had a few bruises of their own, but they were relatively unscathed. Eight teenagers against three soldiers. _ They didn't have a chance_.

Fergus still kept his sour expression, even when Shaira had offered him one of the stormtroopers' detonators. He hadn't even said thank you, but then, if he had, Shaira would be concerned that he might be dying.

And she really hoped there was at least five seconds before they blew up. Not a great idea to be messing around with explosives, which was why Max didn't get any. Korah had explained that we weren't supposed to do their captors' job _ for _them.

Now, thanks to their efforts, the stormtroopers were lying unconscious in a locked storage compartment.

Shaira stopped abruptly, the hairs on her neck tingling uncomfortably. Nick bumped into her shoulder and shot her a questioning look, the others halting behind them. She could hear the soft tap-tap-tap of someone in hard-heeled boots. Still not Vader. Yet.

She gestured to the left turn in the corridor, then pointed to her ears, and then used her fingers to mimic someone walking. Nick nodded and raised his blaster, finger just behind the trigger. Adam got the idea and lifted his up and pointed down where they had just come.

Shaira mouthed ‘stay here’ to the others and crept up the corridor, her toes near numb from the floor. The steps were getting dangerously close, so close she could hear someone muttering. Whatever they were saying, it wasn’t English.

She brought the blaster up to shoulder height, finger on the trigger, and calmed her emotions. Damn the Inquisitors and their Force sensitivity, they wouldn’t catch her and her friends now. _ Keep your thoughts blank_, she thought, and blacked everything out, concentrating on the feel of hard metal on her bare feet and the harsh lights of the warehouse

Tap, tap, tap.

“Be’kar traa sad’etha akaanir,” a feminine voice hissed. “Ugh, alaliir ti’cira?”

_ What the hell… _

“Fe naa!”

The woman was about to say something else when Shaira leapt awkwardly around the corner, saw how close she was, and fired. The blue electricity lit up the corridor and was followed by a loud thump as whoever the woman was collapsed in a heap.

_ Damn, that’s some mean armour though… _

She kept the gun at ready and she raced over to see them up close. They were covered head to toe in black armour, completed with a Mandolorian-style helmet and a deadly-looking staff.

She straightened up as her friends rushed around the corner to see who had fired off a shot. Fergus scowled and pointed to the person. “Fourth Sister.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Korah said. “The staff is a one-sided lightsaber.”

“Interesting,” Shaira murmured. “The helmet looks very Mandolorian.”

“Probably is,” Korah agreed. “Should we take her weapon?”

“Do you really want to give them another reason to kill us?” Ethan asked, his eyes flicking around nervously.

“Hide it,” Adam suggested, voicing Shaira’s thoughts. “We don’t know how to use it.”

“I concur with that analysis,” Shaira acknowledged. “Fergus, you should take it.”

“What?” Adam objected, voice rising in pitch. “The only thing he knows how to swing is a baseball bat!”

“Quiet,” Ethan hissed. “They’ll hear us.”

Fergus strode over to the Fourth Sister and hefted the staff, testing its weight and frowned at the buttons. “I could turn it on and kill her.”

Shaira glanced back to the Fourth Sister in alarm. “No! Are you nuts?” She lowered her voice. “And more than one button means more than one mistake.”

“You should take the opportunity,” Fergus demanded. “Aren’t strategists supposed to take every advantage?”

“I have morals,” she snarled. “And I’m not killing _ anyone_. Neither are you, understand?”

Fergus rolled his eyes and shoved past her, staff gripped in one hand.

Shaira sighed heavily. _ Idiot_. She pointed to the other division in the corridor that led to the right instead of the left. “That way.”

* * *

_ The memory flickered, the only detail standing out a failing light above our heads, and a green box above the door stating in bold white lettering: ‘EXIT’. If we turn back now, we will die horrible deaths. If we continue ahead, there is a higher chance of survival. _

_ My hands push against the door, and I remember the carpark. There are no vehicles and sunlight is unable to reach us, just smooth concrete and the same word painted on the ground with an arrow pointing away into sparsely lit darkness. _

_ I do not recognize the place, but it is indeed part of a warehouse. We are either underground or in a multiple story building, as there are massive concrete support pillars evenly spaced along the carparks. _

_ Maybe if I had not hesitated that day, we would have escaped. _

_ But I cannot change what is the past. _

* * *

The first thing Shaira registers is that somehow, she’s yelling her throat hoarse. “COVER!”

They scatter into three groups in a moment of thick terror as the rest of the Inquisitors burst through the exit door where they had been standing half a moment ago. Every group, thankfully, has someone with a blaster. 

She immediately sees Nick and Adam have switched them to kill mode as blood-red shots screech from behind the other closest concrete pillars. Nick’s the most accurate, as the Grand Inquisitor is the first to ignite his deadly blade to deflect the shots.

Her blaster emits a high-pitched whine as it is flicked onto lethal, and she takes her first shot, straight at the Grand Inquisitor. His orange-yellow eyes laser onto her as he almost fails to deflect it, the shot going up into the ceiling.

He growls something to the Seventh Sister, and she hurls her double-bladed lightsaber at Shaira’s pillar.

“Get down!” Shaira shouts to Korah. They both hit the floor hard, Shaira rolling to face their captors again as the weapon barely misses their heads, gashing bright orange gaps through the pillar as it returned to the Sister’s open hand.

Korah takes his detonator out of his pocket, but she violently shakes her head. “Not yet.”

She pulls the trigger another three times in a line across the cluster of Inquisitors. Relief fills her momentarily as she notices Darth Vader is not there.

The relief dies as she realizes the Inquisitors are slowly advancing. She allows a glance to Korah crouching beside her, shoulders tense. “Throw it.”

In a jagged motion, he stabs the red button in with a finger and hurls it into the enemy’s group. Shaira pulls back behind their pillar as the Grand Inquisitor shouts something, and then there is a massive ‘pop’ and a sharp hissing sound.

_ Cover smoke. _

“MOVE!” Shaira yells from her position. “GO, GO, GO!”

She slapped Korah out of his trance. “Go with the others!”

He didn’t need to be told twice. He raced out and across the carpark to where the others were taking advantage of the situation to run. She fired out shots into the smoke to cover for him and squeaked as one was deflected very near her face.

Now she just needed to get across.

Hmmm. This was a problem.

Though apparently, her fate had already been decided. As she was about to leap forward to make a run for it, the Grand Inquisitor cleared away the smoke from his face with a wave of his hand.

They made eye contact, and his face twisted into a snarl, his lightsaber casting a red glow on the smoke around him.

Shaira backpedalled and sprinted in the opposite direction, away from her friends. Unfortunately, luck was not on her side, as even if she wanted to run them off, her asthma combined with the terror knawing at her self-control had constricted her throat. 

But she didn’t even get that far before the Fifth Brother came out of nowhere. Shaira skidded to a stop and used her body weight (which was on the heavier side) to avoid the fist flying at her jaw.

_ Nick was right. This guy is fat_.

The fist missed her but she was already disadvantaged, even more so as the Seventh Sister raced out of the smoke, her unmasked face contorted with rage.

The three of them surrounded her, backing her up against the wall.

This was problematic.

The Grand Inquisitor’s glare lasered onto hers, and for the first time, she felt disturbed by someone else’s eyes. “Drop the weapon.”

_ You can’t help anyone if you’re dead, _she reminded herself.

She lowered the blaster to the floor and straightened again, raising her hands in the air. “Happy?” she asked venomously.

He called the blaster to his free hand and inspected it briefly. “I will be happy when I have extracted exactly who you are.” He brought his gaze back to Shaira’s, and she stared back defiantly, no matter how much his ashen white face and red markings unsettled her. The Pau’an turned to the other two Inquisitors. “Find the others.”

When they had disappeared into the remains of the smoke explosion, the Grand Inquisitor took several steps toward her and deactivated his lightsaber, placing it on his back.

Shaira resisted the urge to run.

“Tell me, girl,” he asked, his eyes looking her up and down. “How did you outsmart Vader’s men?”

Shaira raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure you can figure that out on your own.”

His right hand rose up and Shaira was slammed against the wall, the air knocked out of her, and an alarming pressure wrapped around her already tight throat. The most terrifying thing was that she could _ feel _ his mind probing into hers.

“Don’t make this difficult for yourself,” he hissed, increasing the pressure on her mind.

“Get the hell out of my head,” she spat. She imagined thorns wrapping around her mind, waters drowning her thoughts, storms clouding her emotions, and then she let her musings fall silent.

Surprisingly, he withdrew his hand. His eyes narrowed. “Vader will be most interested in you.”

She let a thought drown out the others flooding in. _ Oh damn. _

He broke eye contact when a colourful curse echoed down to them, followed by “Where the hell is she?!”

“Nick, yo estoy bien!” she called out in Spanish. The Grand Inquisitor’s yellow eyes narrowed again. _ Yeah, good luck understanding that, you idiot! _ She thought triumphantly.

The smoke had mostly cleared by now, and she could see the Seventh Sister had pinned his hands behind his back with cuffs, and he wasn’t liking it.

His eyes connected with Shaira’s and he relaxed visibly, broadening his stance. “Por que hablas espanol? Por que no ingles?” 

“Tenemos que tener cuidado,” she replied. “Escuchan y miran.” 

Nick’s frown deepened, and Ethan glanced between the two of them. “Que puede salir mal?”

“Mucho,” she replied dryly.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Eres bueno?”

“Si,” she insisted. “Hablas ingles ahora.”

Adam wriggled in the grip of the Fifth Brother, hissing and spitting obscene things about how his mother was- oh, that’s a little inappropriate. She would not want to be the Fifth Brother right now.

“We’re taking them to Lord Vader,” the Grand Inquisitor growled, glancing back at her with a guarded expression. “Follow me.”

* * *

_ I remember the fear that had threatened to engulf me there. That my friends would die. That I would die. That my family would never see me again. _

_ Perhaps it would have been better if my family didn’t see me again. _

_ My memory faltered, and I forced away the permanent darkness trying to take me. _

_ Not now. _

_ I am not conscious, but I can still feel the gaping hole in my abdomen. The flesh twitching under my fingers. The blood making them slippery. _

_ The blinding pain almost dulls out the long slice along my right arm. But a moment of numbness in my middle section reminds me of its severity. It is not too deep, not like the old injury on my right calf that constantly plagues me when I walk, but it will still scar. _

_ My scars are my errors. None of my scars are from the same error, otherwise they would be mistakes. _

_ And if you are what I am, you know well that you can only make a mistake once. The second is death. _

_ Perhaps this is my second mistake. _

* * *

On the outside, Shaira was always a very calm person. She had never lost her temper, and if she hit someone, it was not out of any emotion. It was to teach them.

And she had never had an anxiety attack in front of someone. But there is a first for everything.

Especially if Vader orders to speak to you without your friends. ‘Speak’ isn’t quite accurate though, more like ‘interrogate’. She had been waiting outside the office that Vader had temporarily inhabited simply for the purpose of ‘conversation’. And the Grand Inquisitor was having a very long conversation with Vader.

Nick’s protests still rang in her ears as she was called in. She wasn’t stupid enough to resist.

She had told him she would be fine. But that was probably a lie.

She did not _feel_ fine.

She felt like she was going to collapse.

But still, she walked to what could be her death, head held high and eyes forward.

The Grand Inquisitor was standing to the left and Vader to the right. She probably needed to recite her mantra twenty times for it to have any effect. 

And when the door shut behind her, she had never felt so cold and alone in her entire life.

* * *

It was mainly the Grand Inquisitor asking the questions; Vader had not uttered a single word from the moment she had stepped in the door.

Until now.

The Pau’an had asked her if she knew what the Force was.

She had, of course, said: “No, I do not.”

And almost leapt through the ceiling as Vader spoke for the first time in that room.

“A lie,” he rumbled.

“What would you like me to say? Yes, I don’t know?-”

An invisible hand seized her throat and squeezed savagely, another force pressing her roughly down to her knees.

She strained for air, hands clutching at her neck to try rid herself of the hidden hand, barely seeing the black boots in front of her face through the white clouding her vision.

Just as she felt her consciousness slipping through her fingers, the pressure broke off and she heaved in ragged breaths, sputtering and coughing harshly.

“I shall ask now; what do you know of the Force?” Vader asked dangerously.

She laughed mirthlessly, not daring to look up. “Go back to hell.”

A black boot struck her violently in the gut, the force of the blow sending her flying across the office.

She rolled onto her side and groaned, her sight blurring and her legs curling up to protect the tearing pain in her abdomen. An iron hand gripped her neck and lifted her up, pushing her against the wall. At this point, she didn’t care that Vader’s face was mere inches from her own. There was a brief noise in the background as the Grand Inquisitor left quickly. She didn’t care at the moment.

She only cared about breathing.

“Do not take me for a fool, child,” the voice seemed to surround her, filling every crack in her mind. “I will not ask again.”

She gathered the last of her courage, focused her sight, and stared him where his eyes should be. “Then I’ll die.”

The last thing she registered was being slammed against the wall, and everything going from blinding white to black.


	3. Bombs and Boz Pity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: None  
Shaira and her friends are brought to the Emperor, where they truly discover their fate.  
Her story then jumps to 3 years after this, when Shaira finally comes back to consciousness after suffering near-fatal wounds in an attempt at a rescue on Boz Pity.
> 
> Enjoy!

_ I do not remember much after I had been knocked out. It is very hazy, like trying to see across a desert in the heat of the afternoon. I recall Nick shouting vehemently as we were stunned. I do not know why they had not stunned me. _

_ And I cannot recollect my thoughts to figure out how we were taken from Earth to their universe; I can only remember the exploding pain in my head. It seems that that memory was partially erased. I know erased memories can be remembered if the person experiences intense emotion related to the experience, but that may never happen. _

_ I have been through that once, and I never want to go through it again. _

_ It is strange how we form attachments even though we know they will be liabilities. I knew this back then and did not bother to sever my friendships with the others who would suffer a similar fate as me. _

_ Perhaps that is why I could not bear to see them become what I am. Because I refused to lose the people I loved to death. _

_ Many people believe that death is the worst fate to befall a person. _

_ That is not true. _

_ I know. _

* * *

Shaira’s head throbbed with both physical and mental pain. At this moment, she is not sure which is worse. The dried blood on the back of her head, or the fears swimming around in the seething ocean that is her mind.

One thought is the biggest fish.

_ Why does Vader want to know what I know of the Force? _

As soon as she got to this hell of a place, that question has been chasing after her racing heartbeat.

And the other fact that she could hardly wrap her head around.

_ This is the Star Wars universe. The universe I so desperately wanted to exist. And now look at what my wish has brought me. _

Something had changed, too. She felt… different, and that was not a good thing. Footsteps would sound in her ears right next to her, and yet there was nothing there. Incomprehensible voices would whisper in her mind or echo in the cell lit by dim red lights along the floor, and shadows would seem to move along the jagged edges of the structure.

_ I’m going mad. _

Maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe she was going crazy. Or maybe she was an alien in this universe, and things that weren’t possible in her universe were fully possible here? The Force was an example. And aliens. She hadn’t had a moment to come to terms with the idea that there were _ aliens_.

They existed. And so far, all they wanted to do was kill her and her friends. Why?

There were other questions, too. How did the Imperials get to Earth? How did they know about Earth? When had they found out? How were movies and books of someone’s imagination a reality? And of all people, why _ them_?

What did she and those with her know that was important to someone like Vader, that would bother to trek a universe to get it?

Where did the Emperor come in?

She feared to think what it was like to meet him in person, and her stomach roiled to think what he would do to her friends. Was Nick alright? Were the others still alive? Why would Darth Vader and the Grand Inquisitor waste their time to interrogate a thirteen-year-old girl?

All of this hurt her logical mindset. 

She rubbed her face with a hand and sighed, staring at the door, irritated at the deathly quiet. She didn’t know where her friends had gone, and the lack of events in this instant was making her restless. That was probably what her captors wanted. Wait for her to lose all sense of hope, then strike. It was an effective strategy. At least, it had been in the books, and it wasn’t being used on her.

She liked it better reading it rather than having it applied to herself.

She didn’t dare muse anything out loud, as she could see there was very obvious surveillance in the room, unlike the old warehouse. There would be at least one person watching her, and she had no idea who that person was. Stay confident, and your fate may be delayed.

She brought a hand up to stroke her chin gently in thought and strengthened her mind, ready for the onslaught it was likely to face. The last thing she wanted was to spill all the things she knew and then get everyone killed because they were no longer of any use. The tactic was to hold on to the information for as long as possible, and then when they got through, only give them a little bit of information at a time. Surviving that long would be a miracle, but just because it was a miracle didn’t mean it was impossible. What is logical will always be possible.

It was simply a battle of minds and wills.

And the mind was an unconquerable beast when it came to Shaira.

* * *

The Emperor. Not a word she imagined was something she’d ever speak with a living person in mind. But apparently, life at this point in time was insisting on giving Shaira the finger.

If she had a discussion with life, it would not be a pretty one.

The Eighth Brother had retrieved her, not before insulting her by calling her a ‘primitive’. She had responded with the remark that she could probably learn more about his technology in a day than he could learn about hers in a week.

He had shoved her out the cell door after she had said that. And commented that if she spoke like that to ‘his Majesty’ she wouldn’t have the ability to talk anymore.

Shaira had shut up after that.

Meeting the Emperor was inevitable, but she wasn’t prepared to see him _ now _.

But walking beside the Eighth Brother who was casting her not-so-subtle suspicious glances, her mind was going blank with fear, the truth rolling around in her head.

Perhaps dying would have been the better option. She had almost managed to convince herself that she was jumping to conclusions, which she did on a daily basis anyway, when she and the Inquisitor were halted by two armed guards dressed entirely in an eye-assaulting red. Similar to knights, just much, much more threatening.

Her friends were already there, but even Max understood the direness of the situation and was silent. Nick pressed briefly up against Shaira’s shoulder, his gaze staring straight ahead.

“Tienes valor,” she whispered. Nick nodded slightly, his shoulders and back tense.

Vader was nowhere to be seen, but she could sense the Grand Inquisitor’s eyes boring into her back. She kept still, relaxing her face and shoulders, breathing evenly.

If she was afraid, she didn’t show it.

Never let the enemy see your weakness, or they will use it against you.

Shaira knew that included her friends, no matter how much she refused to believe it. Sometimes she wished she could have had a normal childhood, and she wouldn’t have to worry about tomorrow. She wished she hadn’t learnt calmness through hopelessness.

But someone had to bear this weight, and she was just glad no one else had to hold her burden. She wouldn’t even wish it on Fergus.

When the guards had ordered them into the throne room, an icy peace had settled like frost over her mind. 

_ No regrets_, she told herself as she cast eyes on the real thing for the first time.

The Emperor was surrounded by a field of darkness, so much so Shaira could almost see it. Her own footsteps were deafening to her ears compared to the silence of the massive room.

The throne itself was quite large, but the Emperor was not seated on it. He was on ground level with Vader, who was speaking with his head bowed respectfully, black cloak wreathed around him like a cloud of death. 

The Emperor was in a brown robe so dark it was almost black, and his eyes were a glowing yellow under the shadow the hood cast as he turned to see who would dare enter.

And if Shaira was disturbed by the Grand Inquisitor’s eyes, these were so much worse. They had the I-know-all-your-secrets and the I’m-not-afraid-to-use-it vibe. She had the feeling he already knew everything about her just by looking at her. And that was _ not _ something Shaira liked in a person.

His face was creased with scar tissue and the thin line of his mouth would be enough to send one of the toughest men out the nearest window.

_ This ain’t gonna be pretty_, she could almost hear Nick think.

Vader straightened, his gaze sweeping over them.

The Emperor spoke first, his eyes blazing with malice. “So this,” he hissed “was what you found had caused the disturbance?”

“Yes, my master.”

“_Children_?” the Emperor snarled. “The same that reportedly outsmarted your stormtroopers twice?”

“They have been dealt with, my master,” Vader replied deeply, his tone taking on a flat manner.

“So they have,” he agreed. He turned completely to face his prisoners, eyes extracting information. “You propose that they are all Force-sensitive?”

“Their presences are somewhat… scrambled. I have not yet been able to extract which is the cause of the disturbance.”

Shaira felt Nick stiffen beside her. _ We’re a disturbance?! A freaking disturbance? This is not a good development. _

The Emperor grinned slightly, his teeth showing. It wasn’t a friendly smile, and Shaira felt her toes curl involuntarily. 

If it was fight or flight, she’d be flying.

He moved forward, his guards parting to allow him through. He gestured a gnarled hand towards Nick, and Shaira’s stomach clenched painfully and the back of her head throbbed mercilessly. Part of her mind screamed at her to do something, but her logical side silenced the plea.

“Answer this, my boy. Why is it that I cannot read the minds of you and your friends?” the Emperor growled, his eyes narrowing fractionally.

_ Okay, so apparently the Emperor doesn’t care if his guards know that he’s a Force user. Great. _

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe you need to figure out that one for yourself,” Nick spat. His hazel eyes flashed angrily.

Shaira fought to keep still as the end of one of the guard’s weapons slammed into the back of Nick’s knees, causing him to collapse to the floor as his legs gave out underneath him.

“Silencio, tú huevo,” she hissed to him quickly.

She immediately regretted it as the pain of a blunt object thwacking the back of her legs rippled up her spine, causing her to flinch. But somehow, it just… didn’t _ feel _ right.

Then something seemed to take control of her arm, and she caught the end of the weapon in her hand. It hadn’t come close to her legs.

She frowned briefly, her eyes flicking between her hand and the faceless red guard.

The Emperor’s cunning stare turned to her, and she hastily let go of the weapon. Strangely, the guard backed away somewhat.

“You will speak Basic, and only Basic,” he snarled. “Perhaps you can tell me: Why is it that I cannot read you primitives?”

Summoning every drop of control and patience that could possibly be mustered out of this dilemma, Shaira pushed back the bile in her mouth and said: “I do not know, Your Majesty.”

She was surprised at the nonchalance of her tone.

The Emperor made a sound that could be a scoff and waved his hand. “Take them away. Do what you wish with them, Lord Vader, short of killing them. I still want them alive. Find who is Force-sensitive.”

“Yes, my Master,” Vader replied. 

His line of sight met Shaira’s briefly, and then they had walked out the doors, the Emperor travelling back to his place of importance, sinking into his black throne as if they had been mere ants on a windowsill. _ Only scumbags like you could ever rule half a galaxy, _ she thought, unable to believe that this was really happening and that the Emperor only cared if they were alive and this was a different universe and that one of them had created a disturbance and they were now at the mercy of one of the greatest evils in history and people were going to _ die_.

And she damn well hoped she was one of the first ones.

* * *

**Present Day, Three Years Later**

She could feel the droid stitching together her abdomen. 

Click... Whir... Click... Whir….

The painkillers were so advanced that they had succeeded in muddling her head into a mush of fog and mud. She had resorted to watching the droid carefully, working her now-clean fingers. They weren’t moving much, but it was a start. Everything stunk of bacta and what smelt strikingly similar to bleach.

She’d probably bled everywhere.

She flexed her arms briefly, wincing at the sharp needles shooting down into the tips of her fingers. The slice along her arm had been reduced to a long bacta patch, stretching from her shoulder to her elbow. She should have requested no painkillers to be given so she could determine the severity of her wounds, but a part of her was grateful for the blissful relief.

The dreams, however, had _ not _ been pleasant. The periods of actual unconsciousness were few and far between, offering no shelter from her memories.

Absently, she regarded a stumpy needle being jabbed into her arm, and she was hit with a wave of nausea as the pain drowned her senses. 

Grabbing sudden control of her arms, she bolted upright, ignoring the overwhelming agony ripping through her middle and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, pulling the white sheet with her. Her white medical gown fell over her midsection.

The droid squawked in alarm and raised a different needle, beeping off a series of threats in Droidspeak, before advancing… and a Corellian-accented male voice stopped it in its tracks.

“That won’t be necessary.”

She turned to the voice, shapes blurred and lights far, far too bright. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision and frowned when everything came into focus. The room was completely clear of any medics, save for the droid and Commander Shao, a man of average height, striking blue eyes and a sharp nose. His face was twisted in a grim expression, back straight at attention.

“At ease, Commander. Report,” she asked calmly, her teeth gritted.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, relaxing. “The mission went according to the rough plan you drafted out, but there were heavy casualties on the east and south of the rebel base. The troublemaker known as Nightswan escaped with only a few of his followers. The rest were executed, and we captured three for interrogation. We lost two TIEs and the _Ice_ _Tempest_ sustained minor damage.”

Her lips thinned into a hard line. “Any word from Admiral Durril?”

“He has attempted contact twice so far, ma’am.”

“Impatient. He’ll answer for the soldiers I lost. How many bombs were there?” she questioned.

“Three. Quite expertly placed, I must say. It was mainly the Admiral’s men that took the blasts, but one… blew up right next to you. We scrubbed the comm traffic and it sounds like they knew you were coming and planned accordingly, ma’am,” Shao added sombrely. “Permission to speak freely?”

Shaira pondered this for a moment. “Granted,” she grunted.

“With all due respect, I’m surprised you’re still breathing, ma’am. The Admiral’s arrogance almost cost you your life. You should have stepped in and taken control of the situation before he could talk out of his a-”

His comm beeped, cutting him off. He picked it off his hip swiftly, answering with a guarded: “Yes?”

“Lieutenant Trae on the comm, sir. The Admiral wants to speak to you at once,” the voice on the other end said.

“Why doesn’t he speak to the Grand Assassin, Lieutenant?” Shao asked.

There was a lengthy pause on the other end. “She’s _ alive_, sir?”

“I am quite sure, yes,” he added dryly.

Shaira raised an eyebrow and tipped her head, mouthing ‘Why?’.

“Why does the Admiral need to converse immediately, Lieutenant?” Shao inquired.

“He didn’t say, sir, just that it was urgent.”

Shaira nodded. “We’ll be at the bridge.”

“We’ll be at the bridge soon,” he repeated. “Commander Shao out.”

The comm disconnected with short beep and he put it back on his hip. “Are you sure you can make it to the bridge, ma’am?”

She grimaced. “I’ve fought in worse conditions, Commander. I’ll be fine.”

There was a short pause. “If you don’t mind me asking, where did you get that scar?”

She stared at him blankly for a few seconds, processing what he’d just said. _ The mask_. _ They took off the mask_. Her hand flicked up to touch her face, running her finger down the scar that split through her eyebrow and ran down her cheek, on the side of her obsidian-black eye. The right side of her face. “It does not concern you,” she hissed sharply.

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”

Shaira tipped her head, her mismatched orange-brown and black eyes searching Shao’s expression. “Where did they put my armour and weapons, Commander?”

“They’re in the compartment next to you, ma’am.” Shao raised an eyebrow. “You know, you haven’t revoked my ability to speak freely yet, so…”

“Shao,” Shaira said, rolling her eyes as she worked her feet carefully. “I do not know why I put up with you.”

While waiting for his reply, she tried to stand gingerly, growling as her insides clenched harshly. The droid beeped in concern. She wobbled slightly but managed to stay on her feet, trying not to throw up as ripple after ripple of pain threatened to rob her of her consciousness.

“I didn’t realize you were Aris Or’lei. It is the perfect cover,” Shao insisted. “It’s no surprise you’re good at the piano.”

Shaira was able to stand still for a moment and turn back to the Commander. “That information will stay with you, and only you. If you so much as _ dare _ to hint at the connection to another, I will be forced to execute you. Do you understand?”

Commander Shao raised his hands and bowed his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

“So back to the other urgent things. We need to move. Where is the Chief Medical Officer?”

Understanding what she was looking for, Shao reported: “She left the report on your datapad, ma’am.”

Shaira offered him a small pleased smile. “Very good, Commander. Now, please step outside the door so I can have a little privacy.”

Shao smirked. “Of course, your Assassin-ness.”

He didn’t catch the look of a much deeper pain crossing her face. Physical wounds could heal, but others could not.

* * *

About five minutes and a dose of Morphine later, Commander Shao and the Grand Assassin were marching down the corridors of the ISD _ Ice Tempest_. Her ship.

Her ear protectors had not yet been activated in her mask, and every passing conversation could not escape her notice.

“How is she still alive?” one Engineer passing a distance away commented.

“I heard Maris saying the Grand Assassin is an alien that can regenerate everything. She only looks humanoid because she shifted into that form,” a second Engineer whispered.

Shaira felt the dark ripples of disgust through the Force as the pair walked out of sight. There were other thoughts, too, that were similar. This ‘Maris’ must have a fondness for talking about things they knew nothing about. Perhaps this could be remedied through sparring practice with this person. She glanced pack down at her datapad briefly, something catching her eye.

COLONEL YULAREN

Message Sent>12:03 STANDARD TIME

Message Recieved<15:22 STANDARD TIME

~Nightswan linked to a theft of three military-grade Shockwaves two months and two days ago at approximately 03:39 standard time, Orcar Base. Crewman described them as Outer Rim pirates.

The pirates of the late Q’anah were arrested seven weeks subsequent by Lieutenant Thrawn following a theft of Tibanna gas. Another involved in the theft escaped, going by the title of ‘Cygni’. No later sights have been recorded of this individual despite our best efforts.~

A familiar twinge at the back of her neck spoke of something she was missing. Perhaps this Cygni would lead her to Nightswan? Or Q’anah… who was that? _They sound familiar._ Further research would have to be committed, and while that was being done, she had yet another target that was more important.

She could contact Colonel Yularen when she travelled to Coruscant, and possibly Lieutenant Thrawn if he was who she remembered him to be. The Empire Day celebrations would be an excellent time to do just that. Politics was damned, but sometimes it could be useful.

Letting the Force fill her with its strength, she stepped through the door to the small room just before the command bridge, Commander Shao at her side, to find the blast doors were open at the other end, exposing them completely to the bridge.

The place went dead silent, the planet of Boz Pity casting an eerie glow on her crew.

Admiral Durril stood at the holographic imaging table, two of his officers standing silently behind him, reviewing the damage on the rebel base. His cold blue eyes turned to them, but he did not deactivate the hologram.

_ Arrogant_, she thought. She briefly registered her Commander saluting the Admiral before Durril said: “As you were, Commander.”

“Yes sir,” Shao said stiffly, relaxing back to his previous state.

Admiral Durril lifted his chin, white hair tinted blue from the hologram and black eyebrows crescent-shaped knives. “Grand Assassin. I’m disgusted your tech is not up to date.”

Shaira straightened, covered head to toe in pitch-black armour that concealed various weapons and face hidden with a mask that only featured two blue cat-like pupil-less eyes to suggest where her eyes were, none of her skin or other features were visible. When in these situations, she was able to conceal her accent so there was no connection between her and her other identity, Aris Or’lei. “Quite the contrary, Admiral. It surpasses your ship in many ways.”

“_The star falls at the break of dawn but the moon still rises, yet when the star rises again, the moon still takes the glory_,” she said in Sy Bisti. Immediately the hologram expanded out into a map spanning the entire room, the lights shutting off completely and the doors whooshing shut. Points began to appear on the map in red, green and blue. A grey wedge appeared to the left of the dots, and grey triangles could be seen flying around above the red, green and blue. Below the map, small digital files were strewn about in the projection on the planet of Boz Pity. She tapped one, its contents spilling across in a line. It was a file Shaira had personally created. She knew what it contained on each and every page.

With a flick of a gloved finger, she had sent it flying across the map to where Admiral Durril stood. It stopped and hovered at his shoulder height, displaying all its information. Files on people, weapons, comm traffic, defences, terrain, personnel and shipments. You name it, it was there.

Durril’s expression quickly turned from distrust to rage. “You- you _knew _there were bombs,” he snarled. “You had everything on these rebels and you told _me _nothing! You will pay for this.”

Shaira’s left hand clenched into a fist, the knuckles cracking. Commander Shao moved away subtly. “I believe _you _will be the one to pay, Admiral,” she hissed icily, emphasizing his title. “I have been watching Boz Pity for almost a month, a planet momentarily off-limits to everyone except the Grand Admirals and the _ Ice Tempest_. Though you were supposedly in pursuit of insurgents that lead you here, I have found that that is not entirely the case. The insurgents were driven here by you in an attempt to discover what was here, thus _compromising _my careful research and surveillance. If I had not triggered the bombs earlier, you would have lost almost every soldier you sent down to the base in pursuit of your so-called insurgents. The _ Judicator _was likewise protected by my ship. Do not expect to escape the consequences of this. Politics will only get you so far.”

His thought patterns began to form jagged lines, as they usually did when a person was angry. His mental defences had fallen, and she could see several important details in the fabric of his mind. _ He has connections to a few senators, governors and a Grand Admiral. Interesting. _

Shao glanced to her in barely concealed surprise, and she could hear a whisper from his mind. _"She triggered the bombs intentionally?"_

His lip curled and his eyes were pale discs in the light of the massive hologram. “We shall see.”

“We shall, won’t we? As this base is now compromised, I must return to Coruscant as I am no longer needed here. I believe this meeting is finished. Return to your ship, or I will be forced to remove you,” she growled. His two officers were reverberating their discomforts through the Force, and Durril’s signature was broadcasting hate so intense it seemed to rattle Shaira’s bones.

He didn’t have anything else to go for, so he marched past Commander Shao, not daring to do more than his friends and allies would cover for him. The opening and closing of the blast doors were the only noise filling room. After about a minute, Shaira activated the comm on her left forearm.

“Grand Assassin to Lieutenant Andac in the hangar.” A small light switched on to tell her the connection was live.

“Lieutenant Andac here, ma’am,” a male voice answered.

“Make sure our guest, Admiral Durril, makes it safely to the _ Judicator_,” she ordered icily.

The Lieutenant caught onto her tone. “Yes, ma’am. He’ll be gone quickly, I assure you, ma’am.”

“Good; Grand Assassin out.”

Her finger left the third button on her advanced forearm comm, and it closed the connection with a sharp beep. She winced under her mask, the sound ringing in her ears.

“Deactivate,” she commanded the hologram. It shut off, the room being plunged into momentary darkness. The lights switched back on, and the doors to the bridge opened.

She walked forwards with Commander Shao at her side. “Grand Assassin on deck!” he announced.

Everyone saluted briefly before turning back to their stations. “Navigational Officer Narisi,” Shaira said, addressing her with a nod. The officer looked partially honoured to be known by name by someone such as the Grand Assassin, and partially terrified, judging just by her tense shoulders. Shaira didn’t need to use the Force or her mind-reading. “Set course for Coruscant, and jump in a quarter of an hour.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the officer acknowledged, her tanned face turning back to her console in the officer pits.

Shaira smoothly stalked across the walkway to the command bridge windows, greenish light shining off Boz Pity and forming a deformed reflection on the polished floor. Her boots were silent because of their soft bases. Perfect for stealth. She registered the knife pushing up against the side of her foot in her left boot, noting in the back of her mind that she needed to practice sparring as soon as possible. And do that research. _And_ interrogate the prisoners.

She watched as Admiral Durril’s personal shuttle flew back to his ship, the _ Judicator_. She pitied the people under his command; they must suffer from the blundering fool on a daily basis, with no possible hope of ever standing up to his mistreatments. Though the rumours said it, she was not like Durril or Vader. Never would she treat her crew with such disrespect. Leadership could never truly be based on fear, loyalty came from trust. Only from trust could a fleet be strong.

That was what she liked to tell herself, but she knew that fear could still push people to do terrible things.

As the _ Ice Tempest _slowly turned away from the planet stained in places with black smoke, thin clouds spanning its atmosphere, Shaira breathed out gradually. The glitter of the water from Boz Pity was soon replaced by the dark sheet of space spattered with silver paint.

The dull hum of the hyperdrive powering up reached her ears, and the deck shifted beneath her feet as the Star Destroyer was launched violently into hyperspace, the outside of the windows now streaked with neon blue.

To the city where hope died.

To Coruscant.


	4. Wash it away, wash it away...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short bonus chapter. Sorry, this one is depressing. Though, murderers really don't get off that easy.  
Warning: Blood and reference to torture.

_ When reading, one cannot truly relate unless they have been through something similar. We can easily mock or think the protagonist is weak when they give up information while a blade is at their neck. We can be sceptical of their methods when under pressure. _

_ But to say what we would do in that situation would only prove you do not understand the human mind when the stakes are life or death. Let me tell you what it is like under that sort of horror. You don’t think, you just run. _

_ And when you can no longer run, you fight until your fists are bloody messes and when you can no longer breathe and when you have accepted that you are going to die. _

_ I accepted my death. I broke. _

_ But I was not the one who died. _

She contemplated the bright red blood swirling down into the plug at her feet as water gushed over her back, the skin scored with a puzzle of scars and mistakes that she would not make again. She contemplated it. The scarlet dripping off her fingers. The screaming ringing in her ears.

The three insurgents captured had been close to each other. Two males and a female. So easy to interrogate. So young…

Her throat clenched painfully, her eyes blurring. The hot water washed her golden-brown hair into her eyes and plastered it to her back. She pushed the emotions back and rubbed her fringe away from her eyes, clearing her mind in the steam rising up all around her.

_ What are you? _

The steam blotted out the light above her head.

_ Why do you hesitate when they shriek like mere animals? _

“Stop,” she hissed through gritted teeth, a darkness settling over the glow.

The steam swirled in front of her face, forming a mask.

_ When did you fear the blood on your hands? _

“Stop,” she snarled, her breaths coming in ragged gasps.

_ Was the blade too deep into his heart? _

“STOP!” she screeched, slashing at the mist-made mask mocking her. It dissolved in a small wave of white, contrasting the black claws splitting the skin of her fingers. She sunk back against the numbing wall, the stream washing down her front, pale skin stained with a vermilion that would never wash away.

And yet, that voice still echoed. That monster inside that would never die.

_ You are the monster, _ it tormented.

_ I am the monster, _ she snarled, her voice weakening as her eyes burned. _ But you shouldn’t fear me. You should fear the one who created me. _

_ But they seem so scared when the knife is at their throat. What do they truly fear? The knife, or the one holding it? _

She did not answer.


	5. In the Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this took me all day but I finally finished it! This is Shaira's eyes, and if you look closely, you can see specks of yellow, which are important to the plot later on. I really hope you like this piece of art, it's the first time I've made something like this. Please don't try to do anything... illegal... with it.  
Because I will find you.  
But anyway, I really like it, so I hope you do too! Lemme know what you think!  
~ILoveDragonsALot  
:)

This took soooooo long!!! Finally!


	6. Trust is a Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay, writer's block is merciless.  
So we learn more about the three years between when Shaira and her friends were kidnapped and the present day of the story.  
Warning: Violence and gore

_ Trust is something to be earned. It cannot be bought. It cannot be dictated. A baby is not born trusting its parents. It is not made in the blood, it is made in the heart. And hearts can break. _

_ Once trust is lost, one is very hesitant to give it again because the mind has learnt that such a fragile quality only causes pain and suffering when lost. The person then thinks that they will escape that pain if they refuse to trust. _

_ Unfortunately, this is not true. If one never trusts again, they will always live in the emptiness of being lonely. They will not experience the delightful feeling of a blossoming friendship, nor will they know the sweetness of a kind-hearted companion. In shying away from the pain of having their trust broken, they create their own pain, a wound that simply widens and bleeds until it becomes almost impossible to put faith in another. _

_ Trust is a delicate pane of glass. It is brittle but beautiful. _

_ Yet if one does not hold onto it, it will shatter. _

_ The problem is, you’re not the one holding it. _

She carefully watered the exotic plant, the only living piece of colour in the room. The only thing that would talk to her like a real person. It was strange, really. A mind-reading plant. She had made paintings, but they were not sentient. A painting will show you things, but you cannot show the painting something.

A weird plant, certainly. Perhaps that was why Shaira got along with it.

It had the appearance of a large, pale blue succulent, but when it felt like it the thing would reach out with thin finger-like tentacles to feel its surroundings, and use its mind-reading skills by touching someone if they were nearby.

Very gently, it felt around Shaira’s arm, curling around her elbow. Little dark blue roots spread out over her forearm, entering the skin. Uncomfortable, but most normal conversations were.

Another tentacle prodded lightly at the long black stitches across her abdomen, gliding over old scars. The only thing clothing her was a standard white towel wrapped around her waist, as no one would dare enter her quarters.

She felt its question before she heard it in her mind.

_ Another injury? _

She sighed internally, her eyes following the thin roots as they brushed old scars, recoiling when they bumped into each other. _ Another of many. It was somewhat inevitable. _

_ Is an injury truly inevitable? _

_ If you have to manually detonate a bomb, yes, _ Shaira replied dryly.

_ There are others, though. Some by the one you call Vader. Were those inevitable? _

Shaira glared at the wall. _ They were not, but they were bound to happen. I was lacking skill_.

_ What skill did you fear you lacked? _

_ There were many that I needed but did not have. _ She continued to glare at the wall, partly wondering if she should put a painting there.

_ But which do you _fear?

Shaira paused, weighing up whether or not to think on that question.

_ You fear trust, do you not? You fear that the rest of your friends are dead just as your family are. You fear that trusting _ yourself _ was the mistake you made and that they are dead because of you. _

There was silence for a long moment.

She tried, but she couldn’t take back the hot lines running down her face. The small droplets of anger that had too long been denied their falling. Without her ear protectors, she could hear them descend. Hear them patter on the floor like blood.

Which held more pain, blood or tears?

She did not make a sound. She just let them fall, as she had finally done with the ones she loved.

_ Yes _ , she finally replied, her eyes squeezed shut. _ I am afraid of trust. That glass feeling was broken long ago. _

She could feel the plant’s fingers withdrawing, crawling away from where they had been attached before. 

Its voice began to fade. _ I, Fa’raan, cannot fix the glass you say you have broken. You must learn to do it yourself. _

And when Shaira finally opened her eyes of smooth brown and deepest black, Fa’raan was gone. Her quarters were gone.

Soft blood-red grass poked up against her feet and curled around her toes, the Force wreathed thickly around her.

She twisted to survey her surroundings, take a hesitant step forward to test the ground. Footprints were left behind.

The trees were like knarled people reaching into the sky with pointed branches, reaching for the unfamiliar stars. A chilling breeze rustled the thick leaves and rippled along the plains painted with shades of light and dark greys.

But not even the midnight sun could compare to the lake that lay a few steps ahead of her, captured in starlight and framed by the night. Its edges were glittering with a glowing blue so vibrant daylight would envy it.

And the thing had been shattered.

The moonlight glinted off the broken shards of glass-like water. It pulled at her to touch its jagged edges, begged her to.

Hesitantly, she crept forward and crouched at the shore, checking behind her back once more. The pebbles dug into her exposed feet and yet… her abdomen did not flare up in rolls of vomit-inducing pain. She felt a sort of blissful unfeeling.

As she touched one of the fragments, she heard an incoherent voice that brought back memories of dark rooms and bleeding wounds.

_ Him_.

She turned cautiously, right hand hovering near the place of her small plasma knife. There, among the shadows of the nearest tree, two figures walked out side by side. One was clad solely in black armour, filling the cool air with loud breathing. The other was of similar height, but his face was uncovered. Shaggy hair and fierce blue eyes along with the lightsaber hung at his hip and the thin scar through his right eyebrow named him as a Jedi. His stance was confident and his brow was creased in a question.

The light didn’t sit right on Vader’s shiny armour, and he wasn’t quite looking at them, so she dismissed it as an apparition. Disturbing, considering she had long figured out they were the same person.

The Jedi was trying not to make it apparent, but it was very obvious that he was about to grab his lightsaber at any given moment. Strange; he seemed to be an experienced warrior. The experienced weren't often on edge unless they saw something or someone that they greatly feared, enough that they would show it.

_ Interesting_.

Shaira rose and straightened fully, narrowing her eyes slightly, but kept her expression blank. “Can I help you?”

The image of Vader flickered. The Jedi doesn’t notice. Conclusion: he cannot see it. He is too aware to not have if it were real.

The ‘saber ignited, forming a beautiful blue blade. He holds it in a defensive position before his chest, the hilt gripped strongly in his gloved right hand. “Maybe. You didn’t happen to catch an assassin walk by here, did you?”

His voice held youth, but mostly distrust and an undisguised hint. She didn’t let her guard down, hand still hovering over her concealed weapon.

Broadening her stance and reaching out into her surroundings with the Force to check for further enemies, she let none of the irritation show through her eyes. Shaira glanced quickly behind her to find the lake of broken glass was no longer there, instead replaced by glowing blue roots that just broke the surface of the soil. She sighed. She didn’t age and she was still too old for this mind-mirage crap. “What do you want?”

“To bring you back to the Jedi Order for questioning. Come peacefully, and I won’t resort to force,” he hissed. Something in his tone almost asked for her to bring out her spare weapon.

She leaned forward partially. “The _ what_?”

He frowned. “The Jedi Order? Surely you know who they are.”

Shaira blinked. “I have many questions, but my first one is _ where _ and _ when_?”

“The Jedi will be the only ones asking the questions here,” he growled, the change in mood sudden. “I’m not falling for your tricks.”

_ Oh, he thinks I’m stalling. Still needs some work on the Force Lie Detector™, I see. _

He took a step forward, and suddenly the Force twinged at the back of her neck.

**Danger.**

She leapt sideways just as a dart whizzed past, missing her by millimetres. It hit the dirt with a _ thunk _ that could have been the exposed skin on her shoulder. Since this seemed to be some crazy mind revelation, she only had a plain t-shirt and track pants on, not her standard nanotech armour. 

This was going to be interesting.

Her unprotected ears heard the faint hiss of someone who had missed their target.

“Anakin,” a mature male sighed. “You were supposed to _ distract _ her.”

Shaira turned to face the other, cat-like teeth bared in a snarl. Fear curled deep inside her gut. _ No, no, no, not darts, not darts, not darts… _

Their minds were both somewhat scrambled, only parts of their thoughts even forming coherent sentences. She broke off from her mind-reading, clearing her head for the fight that was to be imminent. Mind-reading was not a safe practice in combat, it was far too distracting. 

She recognized them now, and the soldier dressed in white holding the dart gun. A clone trooper. Obi-Wan Kenobi, whose name lashed up oceans of hatred in Vader’s thoughts, and the other.

Shaira didn’t swear, but this time it was necessary. Anakin Skywalker. Anakin _ kriffing _ Skywalker.

At this point, she couldn’t tell whether this was really in her thoughts or if she had just glitched through time.

Her eyes flicked between the three, anger boiling up inside her. She crushed the rifle with a fisting of her left hand, the clone immediately drawing his own blaster from his hip. She could feel his uncertainty through the Force, his fear. And she could feel the hardening in the Jedis’ resolve, likely due to the fact that they were now certain she was a Sith. She let a fraction of the darkness fill her. If they wanted to take her, all they’d get was a body.

A very small voice inside her head tried to tell her that this was all an illusion, but by now it was a whisper she could not hear.

She leapt into the air, drawing her knees to her chest, and in one smooth movement unclipped her combat knives from her calves, beneath skin-like fabric. When she hit the ground, she was already in battle stance. 

Two blue lightsabers moved closer, Kenobi’s position slowly shifting behind her. Classic combat move; split the attention of the enemy. 

She activated the plasma edges on the blades, the pale purple light glinting in her cold eyes and turning her pale skin a ghostly colour. She could feel the whispers of the Force telling her of the wounds she would gain if she did not move, if she did not fight.

This time she listened.

The first few blows were hard as she tried to find a pattern. But as she brought her right blade down on Skywalker’s lightsaber with a hiss of clashing energy, she recalled her pattern. _ Strike, block, move. _ Usually reserved for just one opponent, but it could be altered for two.

And then she was moving like the silken waves of the sea.

She blocked Kenobi’s strike with her left blade, feeling icy fire filling her veins. In a swift hit, she swung her knee up into Kenobi’s gut, hearing him grunt in pain. In the small loosening of his grip on his lightsaber, she flicked his blade around towards his shoulder just as Skywalker attempted a blow to her side. She deflected it and struck two blows to Skywalker’s chest. He blocked both. With her right blade, she pressed down on his lightsaber, using two fingers on her left hand to shove Kenobi back with the Force. He went flying as she swung her left blade into Skywalker’s side. He pushed back on her right blade to block the left blow.

“Obi-Wan, get back here,” Anakin growled, dodging another blow and blocking the second.

Shaira countered by flipping up and over him. He twisted around just in time to parry off a possibly lethal blow. 

The scene flickered violently before her eyes, and she frowned. The Force alerted her to an incoming blaster bolt and she deflected it, the plasma energy fizzing on her blade. The clone fired another, and this time she sent it back into his blaster with a wave of her left hand as she shoved aside another lightsaber attack with her right. The clone's blaster exploded in a burst of light.

Using her right hand, she sent a ripple of Force energy into Skywalker, and he fell back. In one manoeuvre, she hit his lightsaber out of his hand in an acute swing and with her other hand plunged her right blade into Skywalker’s exposed chest.

Except it wasn’t Anakin anymore.

_ No… _

She withdrew her bloodied blade in horror, the walls inside the Star Destroyer closing in around her like a cage. The fat scarlet drops rolled off the knife and fell to the floor slowly.

Drop…

Drop…

Drop…

Harsh lights glinted off the engraved patterns in a mix of beauty and death. The weapons clattered to the ground in a flash of metal and purple plasma, her hands suddenly weak.

He’d jumped in front of Nick.

_ Nick _ was meant to die.

He’d _ jumped _ in _ front _ of him.

The red haze in her mind fell away to see the red pouring from his chest. Fergus clutched the gaping hole, staring at the blood gushing over his fingers. He looked at the knives on the ground, then gradually up at Shaira. “I hope you die knowing we hate you for what you've done,” he gurgled, blood bubbles spilling out of his mouth.

She took a step back, her poison-yellow eyes glued to Fergus’ slumped form. Watched with terror as he collapsed in a pool of his own liquid.

Nick crouched exhaustedly and stared at the fallen body in front of him, vermilion running in thin lines from his split lip and angry dark patches spanning his cheeks. His hazel gaze was an ugly mixture of defeat and dismayed rage. He spat out a mouthful of blood and coughed harshly.

“You should finish me off, Assassin. Do what you were trained to do,” Nick snarled. “What is another body to you?”

Shaira could feel their presences as she heaved heavy breaths. She could feel the anguish from the others. From Adam, Corban… her friends. She could hear Nick’s mother sobbing. Knew the Grand Inquisitor’s face would be painted in a cruel satisfaction.

Knew the names of the bloodstains on the training grounds.

“What is another body?” Nick mocked, his voice breaking. “Another task? Another trophy? Is that what friends are? The living, alive simply to die?”

It was if she could hear the last fragments of the Shaira she once knew fall and lose their light. She could feel Shaira die.

She wrenched her gaze from Fergus’ dying body. From the few tears leaking from his green eyes to mix with the blood coating him like a blanket for him to sleep peacefully in. The feeling left her face as her essence turned dark. Her voice held the pain and turmoil of a hidden fight her eyes refused to show. “I try. I try, I try, I try. But like the sun that sinks and does not rise again, the darkness will always prevail. And it will take everything. It’ll take and take and take until you join it. So why do I try? Why? Why do I think I can hold the light?” Shaira could no longer see the rest of the room. Just the blood and starless night swirling together in a deathly dance. “In the end, everything dies. Everything falls into death and darkness and the one who tries so hard to hold that little sliver of light is still snuffed out. So what is another life?”

The razor claws that had torn through the tips of her fingers extended, still dripping from her fight with Nick. Like tearing blackthorns on a withered rose. She dug them into her palms, bright red blood welling up around them. She laughed, the gruesome sound echoing. “Our hearts may be black, but we still bleed red.”

* * *

Shaira woke up on the floor of her quarters, her weeping a quiet storm of rage and contempt. 

And in the dark, she could almost feel Nick watching her, his face twisted in the last emotion she had seen on his face.

Hatred.


	7. The Mask is the Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm still alive! I apologize for another delay, I got some sort of stomach bug that's only just wearing off from about thirteen days ago. Yikes.
> 
> Shaira has to face her three prisoners again, looking to extract further information about this 'Nightswan'. She also can't shake off the strange sense that someone nearby is familiar.  
Warning: Torture (not really graphic)

_ Combat. _

_ It is an exercise that requires thought, strategy and physical shape. Lacking even one of these things will eventually disadvantage you, whether it be in your loss of stamina or your opponent successfully finding the flaw in your rhythm. You can be overwhelmed with great physical power, yes, but an effective strategy can exploit a weakness in that power. _

_ It is what we lack that will defeat us, not usually our strengths. One must continue to work on all aspects of combat or be it by damn or coincidence that weakness will come to stab you through the back. _

_ I do not believe in bad luck. I do, however, believe in planning ahead. An enemy can easily find what we are missing and turn it into a weapon, it is merely a matter of time. Never become ignorant to your enemies, or to your allies. The light creates shadow just as opportunity creates an advantage. _

_ Turn your back, and it will be used against you. Give your ignorance, and you will miss the hidden blaster strapped to the leg of your so-called ally. _

_ Considering this, politics and war are not so different after all. _

_ They are a battle, and both hold danger. _

Her concentration was locked onto the objects in front of her. She had memorized every groove and carving in the metal of the two blades. The flowing patterns and curves told a story of pain and struggle. A narrative of survival.

A shame they had been soaked in blood that would never truly wash away.

She could see the blackish cloud of her own rage boiling with closed eyes, could see her Force energy reaching out to lift the two knives. They floated in silence and seemed to be weightless, but it was deceiving. She could feel their heavy burden pushing down on the emptiness in her chest, a cold and relentless mass of guilt and terror and suffering.

But she covered it over and buried it. She had to bury it.

Lest she remembered them and forgot what her purpose was.

Her pain bled into her anger, the delicate bond with the Force darkening as the dark side seeped into her connection, strong in power yet weak in faith.

And she felt… remorse? The emotion was foreign and didn’t match her own mind pattern. Perhaps she was mistaken? But she felt it again, stronger this time, in sickening waves, not different from the rippling agony she experienced when she tried to sit down. She debated whether it was a good idea to reach out, comparing what could go wrong. The person would tap into her mind? Unlikely, her mind was too alien even for the Emperor.

Shaira lifted her right hand, shifting on her feet uncomfortably, and let her consciousness seek out the surges of intense feeling. She retracted slightly as the feeling intensified, hesitating. In her near-emotionless state, she just wasn’t accustomed to seeing emotion like that. That reason was part of why she often prefered male company. When she was ready to cope with unstable or powerful moods, she would reconsider her associate majority, but more than three years later, she refused to call anyone a friend. Trust was damned.

And so was this pattern. She had seen it before, felt it from somewhere she couldn’t remember. It wasn’t on the _ Ice Tempest_, and they had just come out of hyperspace to recalculate another jump. They must be next to something; she could sense millions of lives, all different in the Force.

She broke off the connection, the jolt back into reality causing her to blink several times as the harsh lights blinded her. Flexing her broad shoulders and curling her toes, she called her combat knives to her hands, the familiar handles slipping smoothly into her palms. She bent over, almost crying out as her abdomen clenched, and slid them into their hidden sheathes on each calf.

When she straightened back up again, she pressed a button on the controls on her left forearm called **Activate Armor **in her own written dialect, English, and proceeded to select the entire hologram of her body projected from the panel. It scanned her fingerprint to verify, and then tiny black nanodroids began crawling from the compartment on her back across her body like she was being enveloped by a black hole. 

After her armour had reached from her neck, over her hidden knives and down to her boots, coating her in a specialized protection excluding her hands, she wrestled on her tight black gloves and eased her mask on carefully, taking caution to cover her hair and ensure it didn’t catch. It made a satisfying click when it met the edge of her nanotech armour.

The tinted blue eyes on the mask began adjusting as it powered up, doing an automatic system check. A quiet hiss signalled that the breathing filter had started, filling the mask with cool air. Shaira drew in a shaky breath gratefully, surveying the tiny holograms lighting up inside her mask.

**System Check Complete**

**Problems Detected: None**

**Days Available on Battery: 7**

“Deactivate system inform,” she ordered, and the words shut off, replaced by a small, jagged frequency line measuring the transmission frequency. “Open channel four, receiving sound only.”

The mask beeped in response, a sharp static crowding her hearing, but now with their protection activated, it no longer hurt her sensitive ears. It adjusted quickly, and her hearing was met with a voice in mid-conversation.

“ ...should jump in a few minutes.”

“Acknowledged, _ Ice Tempest_. Traffic being re-routed to stay clear,” a fainter voice answered.

“Thank you, Commenor Command.”

The channel went silent for a moment and was then succeeded by other comm units chatting to one another. Shaira was no longer interested in the background speech and told the system to cut the connection. The channel fell silent, the frequency line, however, continuing its wild dance. Her eyes darted briefly down to the bottom right corner, checking the time.

**23:56 Standard Time**

**>Nearest System Time: 12:01, Commenor**

_ Interesting. Commenor is a very popular trading system. There could be anyone even remotely familiar here. _

She checked the standard time again. _ 23:56. The Commander will have already retired to his quarters and the bridge shifts will have revolved. _

If they really were at the planet Commenor, they should only be a few hours out from Coruscant.

“Open the _ Ice Tempest _ command channel, detention block,” Shaira commanded and waited as the light on her left forearm pulsed a fluorescent orange. When it flashed green, a hologram of the top half of Lieutenant Tso flickered to life. It was almost unheard of to have alien officers on a Star Destroyer, but Shaira didn’t possess the xenophobist attitude most Imperials had. The Rodian was efficient, which was what it came down to in the end.

Race didn’t matter.

“Lieutenant Tso, prepare the prisoners for interrogation. I should arrive in ten minutes.”

He nodded, his narrow face showing slight unease. “Of course, ma’am. They will be ready.”

“Good,” she said and shut the connection with a tap of her finger. Voice command wasn’t always prefered, especially if stealth was needed, so she made sure there was a button she could press to do the same thing. Convenience was welcome, but so was safety. Either option through speech or physical activation first required identification, which wasn’t apparent if Shaira was wearing the armour, but if another person touched anything while she wasn’t conscious, her heart rate was abnormal, or she wasn’t wearing it, the system would immediately lock and shut down. Her communication system was also equipped with advanced encryption; the job of an assassin required many precautions, the Imperial part of the rank needing even more.

That was also why she kept two datapads, one under her rank, and the other under the name Aris Or’lei, a strong-voiced singer and pianist that no one suspected to have ulterior motives and an entirely different name. She even went as far as to use it only when she was in her quarters or off-ship. Commander Shao knowing her other identity would likely prove problematic in the future, but for now, he wouldn’t dare try to cross her. Hopefully never, but hope can easily be misplaced.

She unclipped the compartment on her back as she walked from her combat area through to her chambers, placing it in an open drawer under her desk in the office part of her quarters so she could replace it with a black cape that ended at the back of her knees. Its blue-green sheen complemented the rest of her armour, treading the line between style and scary.

The drawer holding her armour compartment beeped almost musically. 

When someone came through the door from the corridor, they would find themselves in her office, provided they had the guts. There was a door to the left and the right. The left door led to her sleeping chambers, and the right led to a large combat room, where her modified sparring droids sat dormant, waiting to be used.

With her injury, she wouldn’t be able to spar for at least two weeks, more if she didn't use the Force for healing. She couldn’t even sit down at her desk in her office without clenching her teeth, let alone start doing flips while holding two plasma knives. And her short rest after filling out a report on Boz Pity had not proved to be very pleasant, almost splitting her stitches when she had rushed to the refresher to vomit. The spasms afterwards had had the Chief Medical Officer offering her an injection with a heavy dose of painkillers and muscle relaxant.

Shaira breathed out slowly as the drawer holding her compartment hissed shut and locked. Taking one final look around her barely-lit office, she marched up to the door and placed her left forearm up to the scanner, waiting as it verified her identity. As soon as the door whooshed open, she practically leapt out the door and paused shortly to wait for the door to close again. When it did, she strode down the corridor and past the stormtrooper guarding the door, back straight and eyes carefully surveying as she walked briskly to the detention block, armour adjusting along with her movements.

After her first interrogation of the three prisoners, she had easily identified the weakness in their strong bond of more than just friendship: if she threatened the youngest, the other two would tell her _ everything _ to make sure she left him alone. Last time, she had simply left a threat by demonstrating what she could do with a knife.

The smell of blood would constantly be in that cell, and the screams forever in her mind. Her stomach reminded her of what she was expected to do, twisting painfully.

She had done some thorough research on the three and their rebellious activities were quite impressive. Destruction of Imperial property, assault of several squadrons of stormtroopers over a few months, theft of Imperial weaponry, breach of Imperial blockades, the list continued on. The most interesting was the collaboration with known rebel groups, such as the most recent one, Nightswan. There was information to be gained there.

After reaching the detention block in record time and adding in a nod to Tso just for good measure, two stormtroopers flanked either side of her, blasters set on stun for precaution.

The route was achingly familiar, a chorus of screaming and shouting an echo in her head.

Shaira paused at the door and felt that remorse again, its owner impossibly distant. She bared her unnaturally long canines under her mask, two other stormtroopers saluting her. She nodded to them, and one pressed a button to open the door. She stepped inside, the room automatically filling with terror so thick it could form thunderhead clouds.

Three sets of eyes locked onto her mask, their faces a bubbling brew of emotions, recent wounds an angry red.

“Hello again,” Shaira greeted, her voice flat and accentless through her mask. The door closed behind her, leaving her stormtrooper escort outside. “I will be brief. This interrogation depends on your co-operation. Your fellow insurgents” -the visual surveillance whined as it was deactivated- “cannot help you. The only people outside this door will execute you if I give the command. Your only hope of survival is the information you hold, its quality determining whether you end up in an Imperial prison” -she drew her left blade, leaving the plasma unactivated so the lighting could gleam off the razor edge- “or watch your friends die with you. Which will it be?”

The interrogation room stayed void of voices, the only sound afterwards being the rapid breathing of the three rebels. She could see their answer in their eyes before they spoke it.

The young woman of the group glared at the Grand Assassin with hardened brown eyes, her wrists bound above her head on the wall like the other two. She spat at its feet. “We would rather die than negotiate with a monster.”

The assassin walked up to her slowly, deliberately. Stared down at the woman from its impossible height, face inches from hers. “‘Monster’ is a relative term. I can assure you, to the tooka, a nexu is a monster. A shame you are so accustomed to being the nexu.”

The blade slid smoothly, almost gently down her arm, leaving a white mark over the tanned skin. The young man on her left strained at his restraints, pale blue eyes wild and blonde hair mussed. Bruises were dark upon his cheek. The other on the woman’s right was a few years younger, sixteen, eyes scrunched up and jaw clenched.

The caped creature in black ignored both, attention fixed on the female rebel. Its voice turned deadly soft, head tilting slightly. “It is regrettable that an inventor such as Lessa Stav chose such an unfortunate path.”

The colour drained away from Lessa’s face, her back going taut. The boy on her right began muttering quickly under his breath, his eyes still tightly closed.

“It is equally regrettable that your two brothers supported your choice, is it not, Miss Stav? Lachlan and Cole Stav were quite the talented duo.”

Lessa swallowed, her eyes closing briefly. When she opened them again, they were brimming with tears. “They don’t know anything.”

Even through the mask, the snort was audible. The monster drew back, and it could feel Lessa’s thoughts, how she refused to believe there was a person under that mask. “Then it won’t bother me if they die, will it?”

Lessa realized her mistake. “No!” she shrieked. The assassin stalked over to the youngest, his muttering increasing as he noticed how near _ it _ was. How near the blade was to his throat. “Leave him alone, hellcat!”

“Sixteen. Such a young child. Do you want Cole to die, Miss Stav? Do you want his terrified face to be the last thing you ever see of him? Lachlan, too?” Its voice took on a hint of mockery.

The tears were streaming down her face now, high-pitched screaming searing the air as the tip of the blade sunk partially into the skin of Cole’s forearm, the knife trailing down slowly, bright red against white of his skin. Lessa threw her weight against the cuffs holding her up upon the wall, begging the monster to stop.

It halted the knife abruptly and pulled it back, leaving a thin gash along the boy’s arm. Lessa’s cries fell to a whisper, chanting “Stop, stop, stop…”

“I will give you a choice,” it hissed. “You have two brothers, Lessa Stav. You will choose one I will torture, and I will leave the other alone. If you do not choose, I will torture both. If you agree to tell me what I want to know, I will not harm either. You have half an hour until I return to decide.”

With a ripple of her cape, the blue-green sheen a contrast to the red running down Cole’s arm, his eyes still squeezed shut, the creature armoured in black left the interrogation cell, the knife slipping out of sight. As the visual surveillance reactivated, there were two things left.

The prisoners, and a choice.

A most difficult choice.


	8. Floe Wraith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shaira has got what she needs, and is now free to think about other matters. Including a certain someone.
> 
> Warning: Brief panic attack, used the word 'painting' more than I ever have in my life.

_ We all make decisions we regret. Ones we cannot change or go back to. Some we cannot even explain. We are caught between a rock and a hard place. _

_ Yet it is not often that we continuously worry about the situations we cause that affect ourselves. No, we agonize over the decisions that affect others, because they are the ones where the wrong choice was made and it was us that caused the horrible twist in another’s fate. _

_ Those are the decisions that can influence other choices, and then go on to ruin what little confidence we had. _

_ And even though these mistakes may not have been intentional, what goes around will come around. _

_ Always. _

_ We just may not see it yet. _

It has been two hours.

Half an hour since Lessa Stav gave her answer. Half an hour after that since rebel secrets had been documented on one of the most secure datapads in the galaxy. And one hour after _that _where the bridge signalled the Grand Assassin to tell her that they have entered realspace at Coruscant.

Commander Shao had already informed all personnel that there was to be a one-and-a-half week break shift that would rotate to make sure everyone got at least one full day off work to attend the Empire day festivities, whether on Coruscant or the _ Ice Tempest _itself.

She leaned back in the chair at her desk, silence filled with her own music, lost in the memories of when she had first made the album. She wasn’t foolish enough to put her deepest thoughts into poetry and then sing them; there was at least one person she knew that would _not _miss the hidden meanings. It was easy recalling the memories of him.

It was difficult to figure them out. Difficult to figure _him _out.

She idly scrolled through her notes projected on the hologram, finding with satisfaction that there were many things of importance. Shaira was not a liar, she was true to her word. One of the only things left of her old self; she had not touched Lessa’s brothers, and they were permitted food and medical care. It would be much worse when they were handed over to ISB, and there was no point getting stressed over thinking about it. Better to make sure they were at least cared for properly before they were sent off the ship.

Shaira recalled her report on Boz Pity. ‘The insurgents were neutralized within the Boz Pity system’ she had said. ‘A few radicals, including an elusive figure Nightswan, escaped in a stolen Zeta-class imperial shuttle along with a Nebulon-b escort frigate, whose positions are currently unknown.’ Her gaze skimmed over her identification of the stolen shuttle, but her mind continued to roll over one word. _ Radicals_.

It was almost implying that their attacks were random, without a direction or purpose. The long stitches along her abdomen knew otherwise.

The careful study of the culture of Boz Pity and its small population named them as peaceful people, somewhat mournful and with no desire to pursue the more thrilling parts of life. That attack was not theirs. They were the kind of people that would slowly work their way into the cracks of the Empire, snatching up parts of information. In no way would they use bombs to violently destroy and disperse the enemy, nor would they target a specific individual of high rank. Attention was not what they wanted. They wanted to be left alone to continue their simple lives on their own planet. The Empire didn’t interfere with their tiny lives, so they didn’t bother to oppose its rule.

This was also presented to a degree in her report.

Admiral Durril had protested vigorously of her decision to declare the residents of Boz Pity innocent, so much so Shaira had genuinely considered Force-choking him. The consequences would likely be catastrophic, particularly Vader’s ‘disciplinary’ actions, and the long term would have esteemed people such as Tarkin attempting to take advantage of her abilities, reminding her exactly why she couldn’t simply run around with her lightsaber. In no way did she openly use the Force, the only exception being around the Inquisitors, Vader, and of course, the Emperor.

The vicious training exercises she put herself through didn’t rely on the Force, they relied on skill in combat and sharp reflexes, paired with strategy and rapid thought. Which brought her back to_ him._

He was clearly from a military, but certainly not an Imperial one. And whatever the military of his people was, it didn’t muck around. She knew its name, of course, among many other things she had either already known before being taken to this hell of a galaxy or had currently learned in this hell of a galaxy. _The CEDF._

He was certainly more than a soldier; eyes were too sharp, movements too careful, speech too crafted. It was one thing to read it in a book, another to truly meet him. Yet there was one thing Shaira _could_ figure out, something she was far too familiar with.

He didn’t trust her. She didn’t blame him.

* * *

**Six Months Earlier**

Shaira stepped through the dorm door and stopped abruptly. Blinked twice.

“This is a new development,” she said calmly, eyes flicking between the two people before her. “Um, hi.”

At first, she refused to believe her eyes, but she quickly realized the Empire had actually let an alien in Royal Imperial. They’d _actually _done it. Amazing. Whoever had enlisted him in the academy must have been amazingly high up on the ladder. Though who, she could only guess.

The starting survey had easily recognized _blue _as the dominant colour, but focusing intently, the man was certainly more than blue. His forehead was ridged evenly, eyes were a burning ruby red, posture perfectly straight, blue-black hair slicked back at the standard length. He had the broad shoulders and sharp stare of someone who could easily break you in half. And would likely discuss philosophy while doing it.

_Wait just a very long minute, I know whose these guys are. Is this some kind of sick joke I don't understand? First Vader, and now Thrawn? You've got to be kidding me. Quick thanks to the Force that he isn't Orbar. Oh, that wouldn't have gone down well._

The other was human, tanned skin, confused brown eyes. He looked as lost as Shaira felt.

The man’s red eyes assessed her, like a military mind weighing up her strengths and weaknesses. _Ah, there we go. Military man. It would be funny if I asked him what Csilla was like nowadays. I'd probably die._She didn’t feel his mind reaching out to hers, so she dismissed his gaze as simply searching. _Good thing, too._ Where the alien’s mind was calm and impossible to penetrate, the familiar feeling of suspicion rolled off the human’s mind in waves.

The younger one looked two steps toward the depths of paranoia.

“I didn’t know we had a roommate,” he said carefully, accent thick and close to what Shaira would have called _ American._ His brown eyes were guarded, but he wasn’t quite showing hostility.

Shaira sighed, mentally smacking herself. _Ah. __Got it, you're still feeling a bit traumatized. Didn’t catch my accent there, didja? Kinda offended you think I’m one of those Core-world crack-heads. _ Letting her soft on the t’s, sharp on the s’s accent filter in strongly, she said: “I’m not a Core worlder, buddy. Drop the paranoia, I’m in it as deep as you.” Then remembering what introductions were, she added quickly: “I’m Aris, by the way. Aris Or’lei. I’m not the best socially, so please forgive me if I’m a total wreck in our future conversations.”

Her cadet uniform was still draped over her left arm, and her toes wriggled in her not-too-small-but-not-great-either boots, trying not to think about the fact that she was wearing a t-shirt and her right arm that wasn’t covered by a mound of clothes was entirely exposed for both of them to see. Not that she was self-conscious or anything, but the not-so-pretty scars cutting thick, pale and bumpy lines were rather intimidating, not to mention her unnatural height at 6 foot 3, courtesy of some experiments she’d rather not think about. _Like, I wanted to be tall, not a frickin' basketball player. I swear I've almost run into three doors so far._ And then there was her strict training, which added in broad shoulders to the mix, and after _ that, _ there was her mismatched eyes, along with the damn scar across the right side of her face that everyone loved to theorize about. She couldn’t tell anyone where it had actually come from, either. So she just had to mysteriously hint at an unfortunate ‘accident’.

And she could tell from the sightline of both the blue guy and the Outer-Rim/Wild Space eighteen-year-old that that was _ exactly _ what they were looking at.

_ Damn you, Vader. _ Her hands still shook from their most recent ‘chat’.

_Actually, I'm just shook in general._

She blinked again. “Introductions go both ways, you know?”

The way the other guy was still surveying her with hard-to-read red eyes was making her skin prickle uncomfortably. So it was a surprise when he spoke first. Shaira would admit, his smooth voice suited him.

“I believe the test you were referring to before does not apply only to us,” he said quietly to the human, his tone difficult to read beyond _ I know aaaall your secrets. _ “I am Thrawn, and this is my aide, Eli Vanto. He assists with familiarizing me with your language.”

She tipped her head. “I see. You’re a Lieutenant?”

His eyes narrowed.

“I can see the tiles sticking out slightly in your pocket. And the Commandant was in such a bad mood he’d left the plaque drawer open. So I put two and two together.” She paused, her gaze flicking over to Eli. “And why do you look like someone killed your cat?”

_Oops. Tooka, Shaira. Tooka._

“The Commandant set this up for a reason,” Eli hissed. His eyes still hadn’t left the scar on her face. “We’re the academy’s next joke.”

Shaira rolled her eyes. “As far as I’m concerned, they can stick their xenophobia up their noses. It would give them brain damage, but there isn’t much in their heads anyway.”

When Eli didn’t say anything, and Thrawn’s scrutiny travelled along her right arm, she added with a touch of awkwardness: “So, um… which bed is free?”

“Oh, right-” Eli’s hand slid down his neck. “The two on the left aren’t being used, and the ‘fresher is over there.” His hand dropped back down and he gestured around the room. “Welcome to Royal Imperial.”

Shaira frowned, letting some of her own mistrust leak into her eyes. “If it is any consolidation, I’m not xenophobic. And yes, I agree, the Commandant likely set this up, and it’s going to suck. And stop _staring _at my _face_,” she snapped as she walked to the ‘fresher. “You don’t think I get that on a daily basis?”

If she had continued looking at Thrawn as her back turned to them, she would have seen his stare laser onto the strange spidery scars around her neck, dark and out of place.

Perhaps she would have seen rather than felt the emotion flashing in the depth of his ruby eyes.

Suspicion.

* * *

**Present Day**

As usual, scrambling the signal from her personal ship, the _ Floe Wraith_, was simple. State of the art tech that would probably make Grand Moff Tarkin jealous could do anything from baking flatcakes to thoroughly destroying an entire cruiser. Quick tip: don’t press the big red button.

How she remembered what all the buttons did was anyone’s guess, as to them the dialect on the levers of death was entirely foreign. English could come in useful sometimes, especially if people are unable to recognize the written form. In short, nobody would get to touch the buttons anyway.

Shaira loved her ship. It was designed after the Arkanian dragon with bat-like ‘wings’ and what appeared to be silver chrome plating on the outside but was actually just a selected colour setting. The other choices of colour that it could be changed to were black, grey, white and colour-crazy, not to mention twenty shades of green, blue and brown for undercover missions on-planet. The black was most useful in space, as anyone trying to fire upon the ship would probably miss. Even a beginner in ship design could see that it was built for combat. At full speed, she would be slammed back in her seat.

The interior was like being submerged in some sort of old-fashioned hotel, complete with light wood walls carved with pictures of dragons fighting or flying in elegant positions. The floor was a harder and darker mimic of wood, made to be comfortable for both bare feet and boots, filled by a giant sealed painting of a sky dragon with sapphire-blue scales and large wings, its background a splash of deep ocean blue fiercely rippling from a storm. Nothing was sharp or exaggerated; the inside was smooth and flowing and lit by soft yellow lights easy on the eyes. 

The carvings themselves were hiding small censors that opened doors to secret compartments such as the small dojo when touched in a certain pattern. Others activated defence mechanisms or lock-downs. Her fore-arm controls could communicate with the ship, even going so far as to be able to monitor every room and compartment. The door to the cockpit itself was locked with an encryption that interacted with a tiny chip in her arm, changing a part of the sixty-two character access code every ten seconds. If the chip came in contact with anything other than her unique DNA, the whole ship would go on lockdown. If the chip was tampered with, the ship would lockdown. If the chip was somehow remotely accessed, it would change the entire code completely every five seconds and if the code was remotely accessed again by something other than the ship, the ship would lockdown. Nobody is getting past that encryption. 

There were two sets of quarters on the ship that weren’t secret compartments, accessible by Shaira’s fingerprint and DNA scan and a voice code in the only other language she had properly caught on to while she lived her predictable life on Earth: Spanish. 

The parts of the wooden walls in the _ Floe Wraith _ not dominated by carvings were painted with small, simple pictures of animals she liked, painfully reminding her of the world lost to her. A Siberian tiger, a maned wolf, a white African lion, a tree python, a raven, a serval, a couple of blue scarab beetles, a killer whale, an Abyssinian, a leopard cub, and her personal favourite: a pack of wild African dogs chasing a zebra. And a crocodile. Can’t forget the crocodile. She was originally going to paint a nexu instead, but couldn’t seem to get it right on the digital copy.

In both quarters, other than the huge portrait of a swimming sea wraith staring down at the person’s bed from the ceiling, opposite the wall which a couch made from leather-like… _ something _ sat, was a painting of a vast icy land complete with a red sunset. The colours were pastel so the person looking at it didn’t get eye-sore, and they were both almost identical if not for the slight difference in perspective. If the paintings were put side by side, it would appear to be two people looking at the same glacial land, but from a small distance from each other. Courtesy of a dream she’d had and didn’t understand, so she decided to spite it by painting it. The entire ship had taken months to design and build, and obviously would have taken longer if she hadn’t spent hours reading about ship design and working with a large group of engineers, ship-builders and designers lent to her by the Emperor.

She would give him a brownie point for that one, but the only reason she had been able to get a personal craft in the first place was because she had unknowingly prevented an assassination attempt, and he had decided to reward her for her loyalty. Thinking back, Shaira couldn’t help but feel a sense of irony.

Shaira was no Darth Vader, but she could fly. And on the subject of Darth Vader, she had glimpsed him actually walk into the _ Floe Wraith _ when it was finished, and if his face was visible, she would have almost said his expression was one that meant _ weird_. If she thought of him that way, she could almost see a person under there.

A shame there was only a monster. The same monster she was becoming.

That all-too-familiar tight feeling in her chest dug its claws in deeper, her breathing becoming shallow and forced. She fought back the dizziness gripping her head and tried to focus, gripping the steering with iron fingers. If the sharp smell of the oil she used to maintain the leather-like materials in her ship wasn’t thick in the air, she would have had nothing to distract herself from the cage closing in around her mind as a panic attack sucked away her energy.

She felt the stomach cramps grip her abdomen, intensified by her injuries. It happened too often for her to use painkillers, so she just had to endure it and hope it didn’t get worse.

Hope that the true monster lurking under her skin didn’t come out to play, the creature that she was mirrored by the cats and dragons painted on the walls.

And the one detail she had added that would always remind her what she could become.

Yellow eyes.


	9. Shots Fired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So things are pretty similar here. I did have Thrawn as a Captain instead, but then I realized it left a huge plot hole because Thrawn was on the Thunder Wasp under Commander Cheno for a year... so he's a Lieutenant now. Welp. Apologies. Try not to get confused, I must've changed the dates in the story like five times already. Enjoy.
> 
> There is at least one line in here that is from the book, and I don't claim it/them as my own.
> 
> Warning: Violence

Coruscant. Its lights shone across the planet from orbit in patterns that reminded Shaira of the spidery scars around her neck. They stung whenever she touched them, the feeling crawling down her spine and into her toes and reminding her of how she got them, her own screaming still a vivid memory ringing in her ears.

The monochrome greys and blacks were enough to make her nauseous. Just a blur of buildings that covered the entire planet, travelling right down into its depths to hide criminal organizations such as Black Sun and the recent Orbula. She was yet to find out who commanded the latter, itching to update the file and put her mind to something else so it couldn’t wander.

The tightness in her chest had eased, but only because she’d been able to put her mind to trying to figure out how she could possibly be bothered talking to other people in a social manner. Perhaps she should distract herself on more important matters, such as Q’anah.

“Computer, bring up file with the best match to the pirates of Q’anah.”

There was a pause, and then a hologram projected onto the space in front of the tinted view-port. She could see out, but people couldn’t see in.

Her eyes began skimming over the report, bundling away small details such as _ Lieutenant Tarkin_, _ Greater Seswenna_, _ Marauders _ and _ ship programmed to fly into a nearby sun_. Interesting there was a band of pirates, Culoss, that had decided to carry on Q’anah’s legacy, considering how she had died in agony.

Her eyes darted to the dashboard, the button for _ Incoming Message _ flashing violently. She swiped the hologram aside and took the call.

A false-size projection of an older man with stark white hair and a white moustache filled the space that Q’anah’s file had had before, his face showing subtle signs of curiosity and tension. His tone was polite. “Grand Assassin. I was almost convinced you wouldn’t answer.”

“The only time I won’t answer is if I’m unconscious, Colonel. The meeting place is confirmed?”

Something that looked like dark amusement crossed his face. “Yes, I’m sending the coordinates now.”

Her dashboard beeped. “Received, thank you. But I gather there is more to discuss?”

“Yes,” he said, a slight frown creasing his also-white eyebrows. “I have confirmation that two others will be joining us at the rendezvous. I trust your agent will not have a problem with this?”

“Unlikely, Colonel. She does not often disappoint. She can be trusted with this information.”

“I see. Well, good luck with your other business. Is there any particular trait I should look for?”

“If she does not find you first, look for a young 6 foot 3 woman with a scar travelling down the right side of her face.” Her grin was invisible under the mask, and her voice was still flat and void of emotion. “And I hope you can tolerate jokes. They get worse the further the day goes by.”

Colonel Yularen nodded, the side of his mouth quirking up in a partial smile. “She shouldn’t be hard to find. Well, I’ll leave you to your business, then. Good evening, Grand Assassin.”

She inclined her head. “Good evening.”

The hologram deactivated.

She stared at the empty space it had occupied, rolling certain facts around in her head. _ Two others… interesting_.

The Force had shifted strangely around the Colonel, sparking with an odd form of tension and what Shaira believed to be determination. Trouble, perhaps? Or was there more going on underneath than she could see?

She waved away the Q’anah file sitting off to her right and spoke a new order. “Computer, bring up every file from the Imperial Navy submitted within the past five standard days.”

A list appeared, and Shaira began scrolling, her sharp eyes scanning every word in the dialect she’d had to learn in a few weeks; that learning had happened a long time ago.

How far she was from home.

* * *

She carefully eased her ship onto the platform hidden beneath the Imperial Palace, the descent smooth and comforting. With a hiss and a small bump, the _ Floe Wraith _ landed gracefully, its wings folding back into the ship much like dragon wings. With a flick of several switches and the jab of a few buttons, the command panel had been deactivated and the doors to the middle of the ship at the back of the cockpit opened.

Walking through calmly, her gaze slid over the carvings on the walls. The guards outside already had the _ Floe Wraith’s _ clearance codes, but they would most definitely ask for her personal ones as well. She could be a terrorist, after all. It would be a shame if the Emperor was killed.

As the ramp down at the front of the ship opened slowly, Shaira half jumped, half climbed down the ladder to get into the small cargo bay of her ship. Outside, she could count a dozen guards dressed in black, all armed decently.

She became freshly aware of how vulnerable she was on the platform if there was a sniper set up nearby, ready to pick them off.

Striding up to the guard in command, datapad in his hand, she stopped as he gestured for her to halt.

His tone was brisk and a little strained. “Identification, please.”

Her fingers danced over her fore-arm controls, bringing up the codes to be transferred to the guard’s datapad. Her own datapad was now clipped to her waist. 

His glare scanned thoroughly over her ID, the other guards pointing their blasters down but still in ready positions. She knew they would be set on kill, not stun.

His gaze lifted from the datapad, his back straight and face holding the subtle lines of tension at the edges of his eyes. “Grand Assassin, you are clear. Proceed.”

She gave him a respectful nod and marched past the guards as they parted for her, automatically pressing on the screen of her fore-arm controls to signal the _ Floe Wraith _ to close the ramp. It quickly hissed shut and clicked closed, the defences arming, ready for any intruders. The holographic list she was occupied with at the moment didn’t distract her from reaching out with the Force to check the guards’ positions as they moved back to their watchful stations.

As she moved deeper into the belly of the Imperial Palace, she became familiar again with the route to the other platform that she was to meet at in fifteen minutes. A shuttle would be waiting there for Aris Or’lei, and she didn’t want to keep it waiting.

She shut off the list she had been reading as she entered the corridors, passing another set of twelve guards that simply nodded in her direction, already having received orders that she was heading their way and they were not to intervene. 

The corridors were cold in an empty sense, devoid of any breath of life. Down here, the designs were uncomplicated and purely functional, and the lighting was scarce and a harsh bleached white. Her quarters here were much the same way.

She reached them without seeing a single other being, keying the password to let herself in. As soon as the door slid shut behind her, she was hit with a wave of memories.

_ Nick snorted, his lopsided grin shooting pain through the chasm in Shaira’s chest. “This is what we’ll be imprisoned in? It can barely hold one person, let alone two.” _

_ Shaira’s eyes scanned everything carefully, seeing no hidden trap or surveillance equipment. A brief look of confusion crossed her face as the door locked behind them. “Why here? And why the two of us? They have had us split up for a long time now.” _

_ But secretly, she had understood. Nick didn’t know what she’d had to do. Nick didn’t know what she _ could _ do. He didn’t know that she’d been given the choice to kill him and have her other friends set free. _

_ In a way, this was a cruel joke made for her to dissolve under her weight of guilt. Vader had long discovered it was her that was deeply Force-sensitive and found it most useful that she could be forced to do what he wanted if it meant saving her friends. And her friends didn’t even know it. _

_ Neither did they know why their own sensitivity hadn’t been found yet. _

_ She wondered what had happened while she had been kept away from them. There was a new scar on Nick’s lip. It was tiny; a thin sliver of white against pale pink. But it hadn’t been there before, much like the scars across Shaira’s back and left arm hadn’t been there before. It was only a short matter of time… _

_ Nick’s gaze flicked back to her, surprised by her cold silence. Best friends could always tell when the smallest things had changed. And this time, the change wasn’t small. _

_ “Shaira…” A deep frown and brisk voice signalled that he had noticed something was off. “Your eyes.” _

_ She turned her blank stare to him, swallowing everything in sight but letting not even a flicker of light out. No one could miss her new tense posture or broad stance, ready as if expecting to be punched. His hand jerked up, almost to touch her, and she flinched. _

_ Nick knew better than anyone, no matter what some people had put her through, that Shaira didn’t flinch. _

_ His face changed abruptly into horror. “Shaira, what the hell happened to you?” _

_ Her eyes travelled over his expression, but they didn’t seem to even see he was there. Those usually sharp eyes were unfocused. “It's not relevant.” _

_ “Like hell, it is,” Nick spat, his hazel eyes fierce. “What did they freaking do to you?” He looked like he was about to add something, but he then saw the edge of a scar peeking out menacingly from under her short sleeve. She didn’t react as he quickly pulled up the sleeve to find the scar was much bigger than he’d thought. _

_ “What have they been doing to you?” he demanded. _

_ His touch appeared to suddenly awaken the life within Shaira, her left hand snapping up in a blur to grab his forearm in iron fingers. Her eyes were dead and dark and filled with the intensity of a maddened creature trapped in a cage. Her voice may as well have been the razor-edge of a sword. “You would not want to know,” she said, her voice soft and quiet and all kinds of wrong. Her pale lips twitched to flash white teeth and her haunted face was lacking the slight colour it had always held. “What I have seen and endured is only for the abyss to hear.” _

_ She pulled her sleeve back down, her pupils unfocused again as she turned her face away to stare at the wall, as blank as her mismatched eyes. “I thought things couldn’t get much worse, the first time I had seen Vader,” her voice struggling to keep calm. “I could not have been more wrong and more dead than I am now.” _

Shaira’s fist unclenched, still resting tensely against the wall. Surprisingly, she felt nothing. She was as cold and unfeeling as the black holes that sucked away even light itself, she thought, as the armour hiding her skin crawled onto the standing frame across the wall to form an empty shell of her figure. The mask was sealed in place along with the nanodroids, and for the first time since her so-called new freedom within the Empire she served, she felt physically trapped.

Another memory writhed inside her head.

_ As soon as she stepped through the door, her instincts told her to run. This wasn’t the offensive type of instinct, either. It was the reflex of something that felt like prey against a predator. She halted so fast the Grand Inquisitor stumbled into her, regaining his balance at the last second before he could fall sideways. _

_ But Shaira was already running back out the door. She would have made it quite far, thanks to her gruelling physical training, if Vader hadn’t decided to tag along without her knowing. The invisible grip around her throat choked her into unconsciousness. _

_ Finding herself strapped tightly into a chair in what looked like some kind of horrific lab had her almost begging the Force take her back into that blissful void of darkness. _

_ Especially when the first needle was plunged deep into her neck and she found herself screaming. _

Shaira found herself fighting for breath as the terror of the memory gripped her lungs and throat in a violent way her asthma never could. Before her legs could give out, she squeezed her eyes closed and shoved everything currently occupying her mind out until the only thing filling her head was the sound of her own breathing.

Time to get out of this damned place as soon as Shaira’s attire had been updated.

* * *

She would admit, her first thoughts had been of how uncomfortable this was going to feel. Fortunately, some clever designer had made it so that it looked cumbersome but was actually very freely fitted and easy to fight in. Though she hated every sort of dress, this could possibly, _ maybe _ be an exception.

It was long and silky, just above her ankles and cut evenly along the bottom so it wouldn’t trip the wearer. The neck and back were high and modest, and the sleeves were loose and short. The scars along her arms had faded considerably to match the already pale colour of her arms, so they weren’t too obvious aside from their uneveness. The shape was closer-fitting than she would have liked, emphasizing her feminine hips and breasts, but thankfully not revealing. Shaira would have happily killed anyone who dared give her attire that was anywhere close to showing things it shouldn’t. She was by no means disfigured or unattractive, but most would steer clear of her hard gaze and noticeable face scar. There were bolder ones, but she dismissed them before they could get any ideas. She was there to work, not to talk.

The dress itself was of beautiful colour, white yet somehow tinted with sheens of fiery orange and bright yellow. It matched her necklace of seven apricot-orange gems connected with golden chains, ordered with a top row of four, a mid-row of two, and a bottom row of one. The bottom stone was the largest and, in her opinion, the prettiest.

_Pretty? I'm going bloody mad._

Her hair was undecorated, pulled back in a simple braid. _I can't believe braiding with the Force is easier than doing it with my actual fingers._

And what was best was that the dress perfectly concealed a blaster and a knife under its soft folds. A calculated risk, but one could never be too careful.

The shuttle turned out to be similar to one she had used before, simple and common. The pilot was polite and delighted to be driving Aris Or’lei to the Empire Day festivities at the Alisandre’s grand ballroom in Core Square and chatted animatedly along the way about how some important people were supposed to be there, such as Grand Moff Tarkin, Senator Organa, and blah-blah-blah.

She didn’t really mind him, and she had noticed when he had first got a good look at her face, the young man had looked twice. When she smiled, she turned from looking around twenty-eight to about sixteen. He hadn’t asked her how old she was, but he was certainly thinking it.

_I'm not sure _I_ even know how old I am. I should be around seventeen now, but physically? Who the hell knows. I don't know how much somatotropin they used. Or if it was somatotropin._

But there was something else in his mind, too. A slow, pulsing pattern beneath the other, energetic ones. She ignored it, focusing on the conversation and admitting to herself that _ Damn it, I might as well have some fun._

When they arrived, she thanked him with a sincere-ish grin and stepped out of the ship to find that it was much busier and flashier than she was expecting. The doors were closed, but she could see crowds of people milling about through the glass.

As the shuttle slowly glided off again, she felt the odd sensation of having none of her usual armour or clothing on, the breeze freely able to play with the loose locks of her golden-brown hair and brush her face. It was also strange not having the controls she always wore on her forearm.

She took a deep breath of the city air, gathering her strength, and glided on light sandals up to the door. The two on door security, both the around the same height as her and clearly intrigued by the scar on her face, graciously asked for her ID. The datapad under her name transferred the details, and then the doors were opened.

She couldn’t keep the surprise from her face as she walked in. “Great _ Maker_.”

Where did she possibly start?

* * *

As it turned out, she didn’t need to look too far to find a drink. She quietly thanked the Force there was something she could drink that didn’t contain tipsy material. The distinctive smell of alcohol laced the air, among other things.

Many of the people here she didn’t recognize. She saw Captains, Admirals, Moffs and senators, among many others. A few she recognized, such as Director Orson Krennic and Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, as well as General Maximilian Veers. None of them looked her way, thankfully, and she drank her something-juice without anyone attempting to make conversation. She thanked the bartender and turned to survey the massive room, noting that Colonel Yularen was not yet in sight. The place she was to meet him and the others was not far from the hotel celebrations, and the people there were unlikely to ask questions. A useful factor.

She considered actively looking for the colonel of the ISB when a Captain slid in beside her. _ Captain Parck. Ah. The one who found Thrawn. _

“Don’t recognize anyone?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. He held a fancy glass with a dark liquid Shaira had no hope of recognizing. He was fairly good-looking, with dark brown hair and brown eyes, and looked around thirty.

“A few. Not people I would simply walk up to, though,” she said, her accent slipping smoothly over the words.

Voss Parck frowned at that, likely not expecting her to have such an accent. “I’m afraid I’d don’t recognize you, either. May I ask your name?”

“Aris Or’lei,” she supplied calmly, taking a brief sip of her drink. “I have never met you before, Captain Parck, but perhaps I should have.”

He smiled slightly at that. Maybe Shaira wasn’t as bad at discussions as she usually thought. “May I ask where you have heard of me, Miss Or’lei?”

“I read one of your reports about your experiences in an unnamed system near the Unknown Regions.”

“Ah,” Parck’s eyes took on the shine of someone about to tell a story. “Yes, that was an interesting experience. It certainly took on an unexpected turn or two, that’s for sure.”

“Many things do.” She thought back to the explosions on Boz Pity and concealed a grimace.

“Speaking of unexpected turns, what is your business with the Empire, Miss Or’lei? Are you a senator’s daughter?” he asked curiously, his eyes never leaving her face.

“No, Captain,” she said, a hint of humour creeping into her voice. “I’m to gather information for my commander.”

“Who is…?”

“Classified,” she answered simply. She turned to face him fully, her gaze breaking off from the crowds. His brown eyes flicked to the scar on her face and her other eye that was noticeably different, giving him the don’t-damn-well-mess-with-me stare.

Apparently, it worked.

“I see.” He broke off from her gaze and began surveying various people, letting out a sigh.

“I believe you do know me from somewhere, Captain,” she commented, sipping at her drink again.

“You seemed much different in your songs, Miss Or’lei,” he said finally, glancing back to her again. “And a fair amount older.”

“I’m usually like this,” she said, missing the obvious hint completely and instead finding Colonel Yularen in the groups of people. “I wouldn’t get too excited while conversing with me, Captain. Unless you want to discuss quasi-isotropic structures and their different light qualities to anisotropic structures.”

He raised an eyebrow, and her lips twisted up into a smile. Surprisingly, he smiled back. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold up that kind of a conversation.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t hold up many other conversations either,” she said dryly. “Anyway, I’ve found who I’m looking for. Good evening, Captain Voss Parck.”

Parck nodded. “Good evening, Miss Or’lei.”

When she had successfully disappeared past a thick group of people, some deigning to look at her, she let out a quick breath of frustration. Why were people so difficult? And why- Something tingled at the base of her neck. She felt-

“Commander Shao,” she acknowledged as he slipped in beside her. “Good evening.”

“Good evening,” he said, his face carefully faking interest to hide his dark confusion. “I honestly can’t help but doubt that I’ve seen you every time I look.”

“Yes, I assume it’s strange. I saw you watching Captain Parck and I.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “You looked ready to jump out a window when he sat beside you.”

Shaira sighed, a frown creasing her forehead. Yularen was currently occupied. “I _ hit _people, not _ talk _ to them. I don’t understand how people can do this for a living, let alone enjoy it.”

He laughed, bright blue eyes filled with amusement. “I figured as much. I guess it’s nice to get some fresh air.”

“If I were to get ‘fresh air’, I’d go into the depths of a forest. Not talk to people.”

“Aris,” he chided, but his eyes flashed with a question of permission, uncertain if he was crossing the line. She nodded her okay, dodging another pair of people as they walked. “Have a little more enthusiasm. Don’t be so boring.”

“I’m not boring,” she hissed softly, as if raising her voice would bring more attention. “I just have acquired tastes. I much prefer independence and plant biology to social issues and correctness.”

Shao snorted elegantly, but said nothing more. Sensing that he was still worried about crossing the line, she said: “Don’t worry, Shao. I have relatively thick skin, and what happens to me stays only with Aris.”

He nodded his understanding, some of the tightness leaving his jaw and shoulders. His steps were still stiff though, as were his hands. She could feel tension through the patterns in his mind, but she was barely skimming the surface. She didn’t wish to fully expose her mind to the thoughts of the other people here. Such a thing would be overwhelming, and she would probably stumble.

She ended up stumbling anyway.

A man crashed into her, and they luckily both caught their balance before their faces could acquaint themselves with the floor, but the man cut it close.

He took one look at the glare Shao was giving him and apologized profusely, disappearing back into the hoards of people. Shaira watched him go, her eyes narrowed and face schooled in a mask. “Odd.”

The tension returned to Shao’s jaw. _ Equally odd_.

“Come on,” Shaira insisted. “No need taking offence on such a small thing.”

“Right, sorry,” he apologized, leading her through the crowd, not restarting their conversation.

And then she saw _him._

* * *

_ Her forehead is creased slightly, her eyes picking apart the people in her path. She makes no move to converse with any of them, and she does not seem to expect they will acknowledge her. Her ears twitch with every discussion she passes, and her footsteps are careful as if she is treading on enemy ground. The man next to her is shorter and somewhat tense, yet leading her past the groups of people. _

_ Aris does not seem bothered by the gesture, looking perhaps strained, perhaps irritated. Her face is as relaxed as it often is, but her steps hold the fear she expertly hides from her shoulders, face and eyes. Her expression is guarded and her eyes have lost none of their sharpness. The scar down the right side of her face has faded slightly, as have the ones across her arms. There is a newer scar along her upper right arm, thin and ragged, likely from shrapnel. _

_ Conclusion: she is searching for someone and wishes for them to be found as soon as possible, uncomfortable with her new surroundings. _

Thrawn’s eyes narrowed as a man knocked into her. _She__ expects the blow and barely stumbles. Her face is passive, but the man at her side glares at the man who caused her possible fall. Her escort gains a new tension in his jaw as the other man retreats quickly. Aris also notices but does not seem to comment on it, rather saying something calmly, likely to assure him that she is well and his concerns are unnecessary. _

Her eyes continue sifting through the crowd, searching for another, and then they lock onto his. _ Her reaction is clamped down on fiercely, but the emotion is still recognizable. _

* * *

Shaira immediately shoved aside that warm, fuzzy feeling collecting in her chest and the… _ flip _of her stomach. She managed to convince herself that that had merely been her abdomen injury.

_More like a head injury._

She stopped, tapping Shao’s shoulder twice. He halted and turned around, a question on his face. She leaned in and whispered in his ear, just loud enough to be heard. “I have found my contact. You may do whatever you wish while I am gone, as I likely won’t be back here for the night.”

She missed Thrawn’s red eyes narrowing again.

He nodded. “Understood.” With one slightly disgusted look at where she was heading, and to who she was likely going to talk with, he turned away. Her glare of disapproval of Shao’s attitude boring into his back was not lost on Thrawn. Her gaze flicked back to him, and she began making her way towards him again. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as he politely stood with Eli Vanto and Colonel Yularen. His beautiful blue skin, Shaira thought, still contrasted amazingly with the dark green uniform he was wearing. _Or maybe my fashion tastes are just horribly warped._

And she hated the fact that someone who looked so -dare she say it- _ handsome_, couldn’t be trusted or at least couldn’t be trusted not to kill her because she knew some things she shouldn’t. Actually, that went for pretty much everyone. _ The downside of being an assassin: the blue guy is waaaay out of your league. _

_ Wait, did I just admit- no, no I didn’t. _

She politely edged her way into the conversation, between Thrawn and the Colonel who was talking to a man she recognized vaguely as Senator Renking of Lothal. She didn’t interrupt the conversation, and Colonel Yularen acknowledged her with an almost invisible nod of his head.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a young-ish woman with shortish black hair and a slightly uncertain but arrogant expression on her face.

And then she found herself lost again as something came to the fore of her writhing thoughts.

_ Out of the corner of her eye, Shaira glimpsed a flash of unmistakable cobalt, but did not break her concentration. Bones could break, but her determination would not. Unless it involved sushi._

_ The grey droid was lithe and swift, made and programmed for many forms of combat and movement. Its difficulty was cranked up to the highest setting, much like its bulkier counterpart. The former’s moves were smooth and near unpredictable, lacking a clear pattern and fast enough to blur. The latter’s build did not allow it to move as fast or as freely, but its motions were made to mimic those of a powerful person with layers of muscle and a punch that would knock even a person with a helmet into seeing stars. _

_ Her fists were wrapped tightly in bright orange straps, but she still felt the dull pain as she smashed her fist across the lithe droid’s head, sending it careening to the side. In a flexible action, she dropped to one knee, using her other leg to sweep out the legs from under the bulky droid while missing a potentially critical hit. The lithe droid had already recovered, charging towards her with red eyes locked onto her face. _

_ Using her arms, she vaulted over it and behind it, matching it step for step as she countered blows, glancing them off her forearms or avoiding them to use attacks of her own. Her knee slammed up into its mid-part, driving it back. The bulky one circled around behind her, and she sank onto hands and knees as it grabbed for her neck. _

_ In one smooth blur, she leapt up and with sniper precision smashed both feet like diamond hammers into both of the droids’ faces, the lights dying in their eyes as their systems deactivated from the fatal hits. _

_ Shaira straightened back up as she watched the droids rise again, their base programming sending them back to their compartments to recharge and fully deactivate. _

_ The combat dojo at the Royal Imperial Academy was spacious, a box with pale sand-yellow walls and floored with firm black mats. Rolling her shoulders to loosen her back, she began unwrapping the fabric around her fists. Classes had finished for the day, but she made a routine of boxing for ten minutes and then sparring with the academy’s droids. They weren’t quite as advanced as the technology in her own sparring droids, but if she used those here, there was the unfortunate possibility of a fatality. _

_ She had witnessed too many cocky cadets get their behinds handed to them by the droids they thought were ‘easy’ to fight. _

_ Her well-muscled limbs glistening with sweat showed the scars of real battles, ones that could have quickly turned to death. _

_ There were downsides to the exercises she enjoyed. The asthma that had plagued her for many a moon still whined as she breathed with forced effort, and the injury down her right calf pulsed with white-hot aches spasming into her right foot, curling her toes. That scar was ugly and uneven and deep, so deep that she had almost lost function of her leg. Its bad days bordered on paralysis._

_ Thrawn’s ruby eyes tracked all of this as he stood next to one of the benches, his own grey towel resting close to her own. The only thing that her eyes could really focus on at this moment was her black water bottle. _

_ When she had made it to Thrawn’s side and guzzled her water down to the last drop and let out a long sigh did he finally speak. _

_ “You have a breathing difficulty.” _

_ She snorted sharply, her face not fully turned to him as she fiercely rubbed her forehead with her towel. “Asthma. Pretty common where I come from.” _

_ His eyes briefly tracked back to where the droids sat. “You have a vulnerability on your left side when you fight. I assume you are compensating for your right?” _

_ Her eyes followed his gaze. “It’s not quite a vulnerability. It’s more an invitation to get closer. I use it on people, but I like to practise it when I fight droids.” _

_ “Ah. So you are instead making it seem that your stronger side is weak, taking the attention away from your true injury. An interesting tactic.” _

_ “Your tactics are rather interesting, too.” _

_ His eyes turned back to bore holes in her face, but she met his gaze unflinching, her artistic side admiring the contrast between blue and red. _

_ “I don’t miss the opportunity to watch my surroundings,” Shaira explained. “You also box to warm up, I gather?” _

_ “Yes.” _

_ She started walking to the door, the glass wall for the instructors to look through while combat class was in session telling her no one else was in the gym. _

_ “A moment.” _

_ She turned back to him, waiting for him to speak again, her stare surveying his powerful build and passive face. _

_ “Where did you learn to fight?” he asked, Thrawn’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Surely a young civilian such as you cannot have learned and endured such training without other hidden elements?” _

_ She knew as well as Thrawn that the lack of emotion in her expression was hiding a reaction. Her cheek muscles tightened quickly before she had the chance to force them to relax. _

_ “That” -her voice was amazingly calm- “is absolutely none of your concern.” _

_ “We shall see.” _

_ Her now narrowed eyes slid over a thin scar of his own, her accent slightly thicker than usual. “Eventually. But I will warn you that you should not concern yourself with things that you neither understand nor should know.” _

_ She took a step towards the door, her eyes of brown and black meeting vermillion with a challenge. “We all have a dark side, Thrawn. Even you.” _

Shaira waited as the senator, who was, in fact, Senator Renking, gave Arihnda Pryce a data card for Moff Ghadi. After the break in the conversation, it was likely the senator would take his leave to talk to others. She made a point of glancing at the two people that had accompanied Arihnda but had wisely stayed out of reach of the discussion. The man in the pair met her gaze as it passed over them, nudging the woman by his side and gesturing.

What they were saying she could hear, even over the loud hum of talking between groups. The ballroom was shaped in a way that minimized echoes, which seemed to sharpen further the already harsh human and near-human voices.

When she had decided their consistent whispering about her face and arms was getting on her nerves, she twisted around to face them again and made a point of glaring at them with narrowed eyes. They shut up.

She disregarded Arihnda’s leaving form and instead briefly tracked the Senator’s heading when Colonel Wullf Yularen greeted her.

“Good evening, Miss Or’lei. You arrived faster than I’d expected.” His tone was light.

She smiled slightly. “I was always told that if I’m not fifteen minutes early, I’m fifteen minutes late.”

“Very true. Let me introduce you to Lieutenant Thrawn and Ensign Eli Vanto. They will be accompanying us to the rendezvous.”

She bobbed her head. “We’ve met before, thank you, Colonel. And my apologies for your difficulties with the _Blood Crow's_ captain. I know who she is, and she's rather... interesting."

Thrawn’s forehead creased. “Thank you, but I believe it was not all due to Captain Rossi."

Behind him, Eli snorted.

“Really? I doubt she'd need anyone else to hiss for her.” Shaira directed her speech towards Yularen. “When do we leave?”

“I have a transport waiting outside,” Yularen clarified.

She swore she heard Eli say: "Wait, _we?_"

Thrawn’s eyes did a quick sweep of the elaborate ballroom, looking unsurprised. Eli Vanto just looked annoyed. “It would be best to depart at different times. Gatherings such as these can hide unseen enemies.”

Yularen nodded. “ISB does monitor these events. And I agree, it would be wise to leave separately.” He also surveyed the room, his eyes resting briefly on the two men at the door.

_ISB agents? It is possible. There must be someone they're looking for._

“Well then,” Shaira said, carefully observing the three people standing around her. “Who’s going first?”


	10. Shots Received

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plot is revealed, much to Shaira's annoyance.  
Dialogue is heavily referenced from Star Wars: Thrawn. I do not claim that as my own.

_ Often trust issues and paranoia are unnecessary. Not everyone is permanently out to cause you harm. _

_ That being said, one must always keep a careful eye on their surroundings. A friend is easily a hidden enemy, and the enemy may simply be a misunderstood or manipulated friend. If one does not keep their eyes open and their mind clear, a blatant lie may not be found until it is too late. This situation will often end with the person hiding within themselves. _

_ Often people who care too much and do not truly look at who they are spending their efforts on will fall in this way. _

_ Yet there are times when paranoia and mistrust are fully necessary. _

_ And when they expose a hidden plot. _

Thrawn strode confidently down the unnecessarily lavish corridor, noting the mimics of patterns typically considered royal. The smooth coils ending with sharp points spoke of professional personas hiding dark and savage personalities. He highly doubted the architects of the building had looked that deeply into the wallpaper to see such things.

_ Aris stalks uneasily next to me, her gaze flicking over everything and noting details briefly. She does not linger on any of the patterns, instead memorizing the layout and more physical decorations. Her gaze is aglow with distant thoughts and various considerations tick through her eyes before being dismissed. Her steps are tense, and her expression pained. She limps heavier than she normally does, her pale lips in a hard line. Concluding based on her unnaturally stiff back, she has sustained a recent injury to her abdomen. _

Every few moments, she would glance to Thrawn out of the corner of her eye, seemingly considering an ongoing thought. She did the same with Eli and Wullf, almost as a reassurance. 

At one point, her fingers brushed the wall gently, and then her hand drifted to her other wrist. Thrawn stored away the information for later reference, wondering for what purpose she had done such a thing. He was certain he would later find out.

* * *

Shaira heard the sharp beep in her tiny earpiece as she ran an invisible diagnostic over the tiny sensors built into the dress.

Though it is a foreign sound, she knows exactly what it means.

* * *

**Two Months and One Week Before Graduation**

Something felt wrong.

It was not a physical warning of imminent danger, like the sensing of a murderer. But something felt terribly wrong, like an invisible blanket had descended over her face and was quickly suffocating her, choking away the last of her oxygen.

And through the cloud of sleep hazing her mind, yet never entirely resting, she translated one single word through the bells and bursting white patterns screaming in her head.

_ Thrawn._

The fog burst abruptly like a weakened dam, and she hunched forward violently in her bed, the sheet falling onto her legs. On the other bunk, below where Eli slept on the top, Thrawn tossed and turned, muttering in a strange, vowel-dominated language, and surprisingly, Shaira could understand many of the words.

Tiny threads in her mind connected, forming words that floated to the fore of her thoughts. But right now, she pushed them aside.

Silently, her feet hit the floor, and she rushed over to Thrawn’s side, readying herself for the probability of sickness.

But when she realized what was going on, her current assumptions sputtered to a halt.

She lifted the hand from his forehead, which showed no signs of high irregularities in temperature. _ He’s… having a nightmare? _

The Force twinged sharply at the nape of her neck, and suddenly Thrawn’s red eyes flew wide open, an edged sentence she didn’t understand at all escaping his lips. One of his hands shot out and grabbed her wrist painfully, his blue fingers taught.

“Thrawn!” she hissed, her eyes wide. “You’re okay! Everything is okay!”

His eyes darted everywhere, and he growled something in that language again. A small piece of memory returned to her thoughts. _ Cheunh. His language is Cheunh. _

“Thrawn,” she repeated, her other hand pressing down softly in a calming rhythm on his chest, hoping to bring him back to reality. “You are fine. It was just a dream.”

He blinked away the last of whatever he had seen, Shaira shielding her mind so she didn’t have to see it too.

“You are fine,” she soothed.

His grip loosened, but his hand didn’t let go of her wrist, shifting fully to face her.

His eyes bored into hers. “Why?”

She frowned, genuinely confused. “What… do you mean?”

“Why are you showing concern for me?”

Her gaze flicked between his two eyes, seemingly unable to decide which one to look at. The frown deepened, then faded away. “Because I get them too, and I don’t wish them upon anyone.”

He let an uncomfortable silence stretch out, as if waiting to see if she was lying.

At last, he released his hold. “I apologize. I was not expecting you to…” He trailed off.

She understood, saving him from having to think about what haunted him further. “Don’t apologize. Do- do you want a cup of water?”

“No, I am fine, thank you.”

Shaira backed away as he sat up, averting her eyes as his sheet fell from his chest, exposing the fact that he was not wearing a shirt. She turned before she could catch more than the knowledge that he was quite well-built and just as bright blue there.

“I make you uncomfortable.” He sounded… disappointed? Hurt?_ Huh? _

“No,” she sighed. “You’re just not… wearing… a shirt. I respect peoples’ privacy.”

“Humans are strange creatures. Do you all wish to hide yourselves away?”

“Privacy,” she repeated bluntly.

“I am not offended,” he said, not without confusion.

“Hey, buddy. Humans are weird and I don’t understand them much either, but I don’t stare at people who are half-undressed. It’s just common courtesy.”

“I see.” His tone was still strained and softly accented, so she did what she thought best.

“Your nightmares are absolutely none of my business,” she commented, still not facing him and her voice kept low so as not to disturb Eli. “But are you actually alright? You sound pained.”

He paused, and she still refused to scan his mind. “It is simply bad memories.”

She finally turned to address him at face value. “But are you alright? I’m not going back to bed until I know you’re okay.”

He assessed her, his breathing still too rapid. “Your concern is appreciated but unnecessary.”

She didn’t break her gaze off from his. “Thrawn, as a _ friend_, I am trying to help you. My intent is not malicious.”

“Do you truly view me as a friend?” He was standing up now, his chest muscles defined like those of someone who played with assassin droids for fun.

_ Ironic._

“Why wouldn’t I?” And damn him, she felt her lips curl into a genuine, true-to-the-Force smile that lit up tiny lights in her eyes, bringing out the yellow specks.

Thrawn found that the gentle smile was by no means unpleasant. So he decided, on that night, because of the abilities and happenings he had witnessed, he would have to confront her.

* * *

**Two Months Before Graduation**

Shaira lay on her bunk, listening to the gentle breathing of Thrawn and Eli. Her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, head filled with coarse white noise that sparked and sizzled like an electric fire.

Her mind was a beast that would not rest, especially after the intense thought-filled looks Thrawn had been giving her.

_ What if Thrawn tries to murder you in your sleep? He could steal a blaster from somewhere, shoot you in the middle of the night… oh! No! He’d suffocate you with a cloth! Yes, that’s what he’d do. _

Shaira groaned and dumped her pillow over her face to try and silence her stupid brain.

_ Or he’d manipulate you. That’s his thing, isn’t it? Ooo, what if he subtly put it in the Commandant’s head to get you kicked out? Or when he gets a command position, he could kill you when your back is turned. No, he’d manipulate someone into doing it for him, and he’d get away clean. _

_ Bridges? Avocados! If the purpose of life is to live, then what is the purpose of dying? _

_ Maybe that weird dream you had of that ice desert means something important. Maybe you’re going to die. Banana hands? _

_ Oh! NO! Roll over! Too hot. No, that’s too cold. You know that itchy spot on your leg? Hmmm? Do you _ feel _ it? _

Shaira clutched the pillow tighter to her head.

_ Remember that time you embarrassed yourself in front of everyone? Never forget. Think about it. Let it haunt you. It was a mistake, a terrible mistake. Everyone knows. _

She lifted the pillow from her head and huffed.

_ Wait, you know Thrawn’s brother Thrass? Yes… he’ll kill you. Yes. You’ll die. _

_ Jingle bees, jingle bees, stinging all the way... _

“This is ridiculous,” she whispered angrily to herself.

She sat up slowly, the frame of the bed digging into her hands. Her gaze drifted over to where the other two cadets were sleeping, their faces relaxed and unworried. The Force had been prickling in her mind all day, and now her brain was too energized to shut up.

_ Cabeza stupida. _

She lay back down again, but the pillow felt too hard and the scar tissue on her body crawled uncomfortably. Not to mention the bad injury on her leg. Closing her eyes and breathing deeply, she decided to see what Thrawn’s mind held, her consciousness floating into darkness.

The patterns were calm and well ordered, gradually entwining and unravelling as she searched further. If it could be described as a colour, she would say it was a pale glacial blue, as cold as the ice itself. With great care, she reached out to touch one of the threads.

A sharp pain struck her in the head, and then-

_ “Thrass, do not be a fool,” Thrawn said calmly. “The war is coming, and I intend to be prepared for it.” _

_ “This is madness, Thrawn!” Thrass snarled, his thin lips twisted in anger. “What can you possibly hope to accomplish? The Chiss need you here and now. Faking exile to study an empire we know little about will not help us win!” _

_ “Knowledge is power,” Thrawn said. “We still know little about our enemies.” _

_ Thrass hissed, every muscle tense and expression showing clear rage. “You are more likely to die than to gather anything useful.” His voice sharpened. “And when you do die, it will be for nothing. You are on your own, Mitth’raw’nuruodo.” _

_ “I will do what I must.” _

Shaira’s eyes shot open, choking back a surprised cry. So many things rushed back that she didn’t even know she’d forgotten. Names, places, plans… _The books_.

She shuffled to the end of her bed, legs swinging over the side, and jumped, her feet landing silently. She had tried for too long to sleep with active thoughts, so she was going to think. And she knew just the place to do that.

Slipping on her black boots and throwing on a jacket, she glided through the automatic door and out into the deserted hallways. Midnight. Such a perfect time to think. The other, reasonable cadets were sleeping, and here she was walking around contemplating her impending doom.

The door to outside hissed shut behind her, and almost instantly, she felt a melancholic peace settle over her. The black sky held building after building lit up with lights of a rainbow of colours. Ships could be seen frequenting the skies, whizzing between invisible lanes.

Ahead of her, in the academy gardens, a small water fountain bubbled inside a large pool. Dark pebbles surrounded it like a shore, exotic fiery flowers wedging their roots underneath the stones. Trickling water hissed in her ears as she deactivated her ear protectors, suddenly surrounded with the rustling of bushes, the whisper of the breeze, and the sharpness of her own footsteps as she was drawn to the water.

She eased herself into a sitting position, the pebbles shifting beneath her. Using gentle fingers, she traced the edges of one of the blooms, its soft petals like butter under her touch.

She missed things like this. The green. The breeze. The life.

If she wasn’t careful, the flowers would start to smell like homesickness.

A quiet breath blew over her lips as she let her mind wander, the Force wreathed thickly around her like a hidden embrace. She remembered what she had said to Nick, while Fergus had been dying at her feet.

_ “Our hearts may be black, but we still bleed red.” _

Looking down at the tiny scars on the tips of her fingers, remembering how she had dug her retractable claws into her palms, she thought about that sentence. She recalled clearly how the holes in her hands had streamed with red.

_ If blackened hearts bleed red, then I’m no more than the abyss of space. _

She sat there for a long time, watching the water pour out from the top of the stone fountain and splash out over the glassy pool. Tiny blue lilypads glowed from the surface, casting a soft light on Shaira’s face.

_ How simple it is to lose the light within ourselves. _

Uncertainty ate away at her insides and the fear that the creature lurking underneath her calm exterior would one day rise to conquer the things that made her human. The mantra she would repeat to herself long ago pulled at the edges of her mind, all but one opaque sentence.

_ I am Shaira Derison._

But who was Shaira Derison?

* * *

She could not answer many of the questions that plagued her sense of logic. Some were too vague. Others were simply too complicated. But there was one that she knew she could now answer.

Thrawn would not act on the things he knew immediately. He would wait, collecting information and resources. Then, friend or not, he would strike. Yet as she heard footsteps sound after the whoosh of a door, she began to doubt that ‘waiting’ theory.

_ If Thrawn is to bring down or make an ally of the Emperor, how will that affect everything else? _

He was very good. His measured stride was the perfect combination of stealth and speed, and if she had the average human’s hearing, she would have been oblivious to the approaching threat.

Unfortunately for him, her modified senses were far from average.

She regarded him with the subtle turn of her head, which he responded to by pausing his steps. When the footsteps resumed, they still held the same determination his tread had had before.

There was a crunching of boots on pebbles and then the light swish of fabric as Thrawn sat down near her, a safe distance away. If Shaira really wanted to kill him the space between them would become irrelevant, but she admitted the delay as she rose to her feet would give him an advantage.

And if he was out here, it was likely he thought he already had an advantage.

Shaira watched him out of the corner of her eye. “Interesting for you to come out here at ungodly o’clock in the morning.”

“You do not trust me,” he said simply, his accent flowing smoothly over the words.

“I can assure you, the feeling is mutual,” she shot back. “You’re not who you claim to be.”

“The same can be said for you.”

She snorted. “Yeah, except the difference is I’m not potentially committing treason.”

His glowing eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

“There are three points. First, you looked far too healthy to have spent years on an uninhabited planet without outside help, which you were unlikely to have received if your people hated you. Second, if there is a threat in the Unknown Regions that is a danger to your people, they would not have exiled an important asset. And third, if your people did truly exile you, and you have very sensitive information, they would not have left you in such a convenient place.”

“I have pledged my service to the Emperor,” Thrawn stated calmly, but she could feel his thoughts beginning to resort themselves. _She has access to military reports,_ she heard him think. “Are you suggesting I would break my word?”

“Spare me the lies,” she hissed, her voice ice-cold. “I know a liar when I see one, and I wouldn’t take that too personally.”

He must have felt the change from her attitude to him a week ago, because something in his mind changed, too.

“And what causes you to think I am lying? It is not wise to base such important discernings on theory.”

“It’s far from theory,” Shaira said flatly. “Take the first point, for example. I have lived in a very forest-oriented place for most of my life. It was not tropical, but I am well-versed enough in biology to know that when there is an abundance of food, the things at the top of the food chain tend to be near to twice as big as those in a colder climate. Provided you lived long enough to avoid the smaller deadly things, you would encounter larger deadly things. And as I’m sure you’re aware, I know what different scars look like. How strange it is that you have none that are animal-related.”

His voice had taken on a harsher edge, face still perfectly calm. “I do not know how you have acquired access to such information about my exile. You could easily be bluffing.”

To prove her point, she pulled up the left leg of her pants to reveal a collection of shallow puckered scars and unevenly healed skin that could be called mutated. It looked like it had been from just one blow, and where the skin had once been torn and partially died away it had left a reddish tinge. _Claws, most likely,_ she could hear Thrawn thinking. She gestured to it. “I rest my case. Plus, there are other aspects, such as the way you fight. You fight like you’ve never truly faced a starving animal intent on killing you. If you had, your style would be much different.”

There was an uncomfortable silence of Thrawn’s red eyes assessing her. “And what will you do with this information?”

“At the moment? Nothing,” she replied calmly, her gaze meeting his challengingly. “But mark my words, the moment you decide you have sufficiently achieved your goals and make any move to betray these peoples, I will not rest until you are brought to justice.”

“And what is your understanding of justice?” he asked cooly. “To bring me before the Emperor?”

“Justice is a slippery term. It depends on what you do that deserves such an action.” There was a pause. “But I believe you know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t bring you before the Emperor. Execution is hardly justice.”

“It is comforting to know you have morals,” he commented dryly.

She broke off from his gaze to watch the silver waves ripple across the pool, light dancing in her eyes. There was a long, drawn-out pause. “Yet sometimes death is better than staying alive,” she said softly. “And sometimes morals are simply the lies we tell ourselves.”

He inclined his head. “That is true. Did the torture you endured teach you this?”

Her jaw clenched briefly, her fingers twitching. “It sharpened the resolve to prove it wrong.”

He was satisfied with her reaction and decided to push the matter further, wondering if he could get a more pronounced emotion to better understand her. After all, art was still not a physical being. “You often mutter about matters in your sleep. You speak of someone who died. She was your sister?”

There was that reaction again, stronger and sharper, especially because he had crossed an invisible line. “No,” she answered quietly. “She was… someone else.” Why she was still giving answers, she didn’t know. But it was still better than giving him raw reactions. “A person long lost.”

“I see. And what about the others? I believe you constantly are plagued by dreams of one called _Nick_.”

This time the reflex was powerful, clenching her hands into fists and her stare hardening to obsidian. So much for not giving him raw reactions. 

She whirled to face him, nothing showing behind those strange eyes of hers except the cavity of space. The way she bared her strangely sharp teeth in a manner that seemed so close to the anger of a Chiss gave him an uneasy pause. “If you are suggesting a point, I suggest you get to it before you find yourself without a throat,_ Lieutenant._”

“I am suggesting that you have a conscience.”

A flicker flashed in her eyes, but before he could identify it, it was gone. Her fists uncurled and her back relaxed.

“And that means?” Her voice was back to its controlled manner.

“That you will at least humour me if I tell you of the threats to our galaxy.”

_But it will never be my galaxy_.

And finally, that wall behind her eyes broke, and he was met with the haunted eyes of someone who had desperately tried to run from what was themselves. And as that seeped into her face, he saw how young she really was. She let out a slow breath that tumbled over her thin lips. “Sometimes I wonder” -her eyes filled with a deep sorrow and she dropped her gaze to her battered hands- “if the word safe has any meaning at all.”

“Safety is an illusion,” Thrawn said, the tight blue skin around his eyes telling her that he knew this as well as she did.

“I know,” Shaira confessed. “Knowledge is as painful as it is powerful.”

He inclined his head again. “So you will listen?”

“I’d be a fool not to.”

“Very well. I assume you are aware that the Empire is corrupt?”

“All governments are,” she answered blandly.

“Yes. But if you think the Empire is evil, imagine something that is far worse. It does not care to conquer, only to destroy. You and I have found ourselves facing this enemy, and our tools and weapons are limited. What action do you take?” His gaze met hers intensely, expecting an answer.

“Well, before doing anything, I would find out who stood with this evil and how strong it was. If I am unable to successfully fight it, I would retreat. However, if I could fight...” her eyes narrowed in thought. “The first option is to join and fight it together. The second option is to” -her nose wrinkled- “strike you down and buy myself time, hoping to find an effective weapon. The third option is that I give myself up, so you have time to create a weapon. There are others, but I assume that’s mainly what you were going for?”

“Very good. I was largely faced with those first two choices when I came across your Empire.”

Her eyes narrowed fractionally at ‘your’. “So your people were searching for other options against this threat.”

“Yes. As you can likely see, I wish no true harm against these peoples. I am merely a scout to discern whether my people will find assistance here.”

“Yet I have found from my little life experiences that you’re not telling me the entire truth. You’re also casually assuming that I haven’t found this as an opportunity to go screeching to the Commandant on someone planning to crumble the Empire.”

“It is not an assumption. I know you hold no liking for the Empire or its Emperor. Tell me, do you recognize this?” His blue hand offered her his datapad, and as she mechanically took it, her gaze lasered onto its screen in muted surprise.

It was a piece of artwork she had made not long ago. It was of a beautiful woman with white hair, pale skin and bright red war markings on her cheeks and lips. Her eyes were black, sparkling with tiny stars, and it was set in a dark green background.

She felt Thrawn’s mind patterns shift and begin to form complex thoughts.

“... are you now going to lecture me on my personality?”

“Your artwork tells me things you will not. Of course, with only one piece, not everything can be taken as current, but I do not need much to determine who you are, and what you hide.”

_Mmmm. You make it sound like you know more than you actually do._

“I will not deny that the Empire is merely rich in resources, and not brains.” She raised an eyebrow. “So that’s what you were looking at yesterday. I honestly thought you’d choose a different piece.”

“So you expected me to eventually question your identity in more depth.”

_ Successful subject deflection. _

She met his gaze, her eyes guarded. “Neither of us are people who like to forget things.”

“You are attempting to change the subject. I know your training was also torture.” A damn _statement_.

Her shoulder twitched and the gaze locked with Thrawn’s hardened. “Don’t concern yourself with what you wouldn’t understand.”

“So you have said.”

There was a long period of silence, and she took the time to carefully scan his mind, recognizing several threads as they weaved and untied. How he slept with a mind like that, she didn’t know.

Shaira clenched her teeth, deciding to add in something. She couldn’t take her eyes off the white-haired warrior on the datapad. “Your Basic has improved a lot.”

“You wish to distract me from the fact that that painting speaks of the trauma you endured.”

“That painting was made not long after I got the wound on my face. It symbolised an act of defiance towards those who wished me harm, not the overcoming of trauma.”

“Yes, I found as much. I did not say the painting represented trauma itself.”

“So what exactly is it that you want? You have long term goals, as I have mine. But why did you _ really _ come out here?”

“I wish to ask a favour.”

Her gaze jerked from the screen to his face, wondering if he was kidding. He wasn’t. “And _ what _ is that favour?”

“I ask that your skills as a computer... _technician_ be put to use in accessing information on Cadet Orbar,” his face was calm, but there was a low level of caution.

She blinked a few times. “Are you suggesting I _ hack _ into the Academy files? Like, seriously?”

“Hack?”

“Illegally access usually via coding manipulation,” she explained.

“I see. Thank you. Yet it is not illegal if you do not get caught and the act is not documented.”

“Geez, Thrawn,” she breathed. “Is this what you do normally? Ask people to do stuff illegally?”

“You hold a greater disliking of Orbar than I do, if I am correct. I simply seek information that is not provided publicly.”

The corner of her mouth twisted down as she realized which situation with Orbar he was implying.

“And you think I can do that?”

“Did you not cause the malfunction of the flight simulator systems while Orbar was practising aerial combat with his accomplices? Did that not require accessing the Academy’s schedule, among other things?”

She grinned evilly. “Maaaybe.”

“So would accessing files not be easier?”

She tilted her hand back and forth in a so-so gesture. “Dunno. Depends on the encryption and how complicated the base coding is.”

“I assume you have done this before?”

She smirked, her uneven eyes flashing. “You _ haven’t_?”

He mirrored her smirk. “It was not me directly.”

Shaira widened her eyes with exaggerated surprise. “So the mysterious Chiss _ does _ have some sort of humour. I was beginning to doubt.”

“I find your people’s love for sarcasm unnerving.”

She snorted. “I’m hardly a representation of my people _ or _ a lover of sarcasm.”

“I have found you are hardly a lover of anything. I believe you find my favour agreeable?” His ruby red orbs were searching.

_ Did he just try to insult me? _

“Yeah. Don’t expect it to be done in ten minutes, though. I’m not exactly a miracle worker.”

“A short delay is acceptable.” He seemed satisfied now, she noted, and he leaned back slightly.

There was another long pause, and she handed back his datapad.

And suddenly Shaira’s back tensed, her ears flicking back and her brow furrowing as she winced. Thrawn shot a questioning glance at her.

With her head tipped down, she whispered fiercely: “Don’t move your head, but there are five cadets heading our way” -her ears twitched again and she opened her mouth to breath deeply- “and one of them is Orbar.”

Thrawn cocked his head for a few moments.“Yes, I hear them now,” he answered quietly, his eyes narrowed.

As their footsteps neared, she rose to her feet, Thrawn by her side. If they thought five was enough to scare her, they were going to get a nasty surprise.

“Well look what we have here,” Orbar snarled, his dark eyes glittering with disgust. “The Academy’s two aliens. Where’s your Wild Space pet?”

“Those were some complicated sentences, Orbar,” Shaira said evenly. “You might need to take a break to let your brain catch up to what you just said.”

“You don’t scare me, freak,” he spat.

She tipped her head, masking the pain of who he reminded her of. “Then you’re dumber than I thought.”

One of his friends stepped forward. “Who do you think-”

“What do you want?” Shaira asked, cutting him off.

“To humiliate you, of course,” Orbar replied.

“_If I wanted to kill myself, I’d climb up your ego and jump down to your intelligence,” _ she hissed in Meese Caulf. Thrawn glanced at her with mild surprise.

She was about to say something more when the highest pitch she’d ever heard slammed into her ears and her eyes exploded in white. When the sound stopped, she couldn’t hear the other cadets laughing. She couldn’t hear what Thrawn was saying.

But she did hear Orbar stop laughing and say: “What the hell just happened to her eyes?”

The control she had worried about losing quickly dissipated through her fingers. In a blur, she had Orbar by the throat of his uniform, her eyes burning. She was so close to his face she could see her own yellow eyes reflected in his horrified gaze. She didn’t care that claws had split through the ends of her fingers, nor did she care that her long canines were bared in a snarl.

She could only hear something in her head guiding her to kill.

She struggled against the beast wiggling its way into her sense of reason. “I suggest you leave,” her accent as thick as she had ever heard it. The claws on her left hand extended in front of his face. “Or I will be the last thing you ever see.”

She dropped him, his legs barely holding him up as he turned and ran, his eyes wild. His friends followed.

Just as they disappeared back into the building, a new wave of fire lanced into her eyes and she hissed in pain, palming her head as it throbbed viciously.

A hand gripped her shoulder, and in reflex her hands shot away from her face, her claws fully extended to strike whoever-

“Aris,” a sharp voice ordered. “Focus on my face.”

“It’s” -another wave raced up into her eyes, causing her to break off with a sharp cry- “I can't-”

“Focus on my face,” the voice repeated, the hand on her shoulder tightening. She could feel his shock as she opened her cat-like yellow eyes to meet his red ones, the cool mask slipping.

And slowly the pain lessened and the urge to _ kill it, make it suffer _ ceased and Shaira collapsed into him. He gripped her with large hands before she could fall, murmuring something in a language she didn’t understand.

Yet she still didn’t know what prompted her to say in a hollow voice far from her own: “The darkness calls to its own.”

Thrawn hissed something in that language again, his mind sending out rolling waves of disturbed patterns.

A rolling ripple moved up from her feet and into her insides as she finally shoved the thing inside her head aside; burying her face in his shoulder, shivers racking her body. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Why, why, why, why…”

A hand moved to her back, his fingers running soothing circles down her spine. “I did not know you spoke Meese Caulf.”

Shaira didn’t lift her head, replying in that language. “_Sometimes what isn’t known should stay that way._”

* * *

**Present Day**

As soon as Shaira stepped through the automatic door, trying hard to disregard the switch it just flicked in her mind as memories of stepping through other doors came back, she stopped. It was unbelievable.

There was a small sculpture off to the left of the door, set in some sort of white stone with bright veins of rainbow colours running through it, a painting of some probably famous guy of the far wall, and so many other unique curves in the architecture of the room that it was impossible to look at everything at once.

“Maker’s sake, Colonel,” she breathed, forcing her feet to move. “What kind of budget are you _ on_?”

“It’s secluded and it offers a range of staff that don’t ask questions. It’s also run directly by the Empire, so we can afford to discuss things here,” he answered, looking like he was trying not to laugh at her expression.

_ Oh. So someone likely fulfilled one of his favours. _

“It’s certainly… different,” Eli managed.

She could have punched him.

Thrawn had already gravitated to the painting, likely seeing into the person’s mind within the span of a few minutes. Shaira followed him, frowning at the canvas and thinking hard.

She clicked her fingers. “Ah. King Bothra the Third. It’s by Poso Ackson, from Alderaan.”

“Indeed,” Thrawn replied.

“You’ve seen some of his artwork?”

“There are some of his pieces in the Cordelair Museum on Coruscant,” he answered matter-of-factly. “As are some of yours.”

She turned to frown at him. “I’m sorry? There are some of my _ what_?”

“Your paintings. They were sold to the Cordelair Museum by some of the people that had purchased them from you,” he looked down at her from his infuriating small height difference. _I hate it when people do that._ “You did not know?”

“No,” she replied slowly. “Which ones?”

“If I remember correctly, _ The Blue Moon_, _ Darkness Flies_, _ Insult to Injury _ and _ The Night is a Rainbow_.”

“Huh. That’s… odd.”

“And so is what we’re about to discuss,” Yularen put in from across the room, an alcoholic drink in hand that was so black it would compete with the darkness of a black hole. “Are you familiar with the figure Nightswan?”

Shaira heard Thrawn shift behind her as she turned to look at the Colonel, feeling the hairs on her neck prickle in warning. No matter how many conversations she had, it still felt dangerous to turn even a fraction of her back towards him.

“All too familiar.”

“Then this meeting will be most informative for all of us, especially with the current dilemma around the stolen tibanna,” Yularen continued, walking back over to them. “Throw in Thrawn's filter with the rest of what ISB has been sorting through, and this pops up.”

Yularen produced a datacard, which Thrawn took politely and inserted into his datapad. Thrawn's forehead creased just slightly as his screen loaded.

"We've been hearing rumours about a Nightswan for about a year now. At first, he just seemed to plan jobs for various people, such as these pirates," Yularen continued. "But now we're not entirely sure."

"And now he's getting dangerous," Shaira hissed, snatching up information from the corner of her eye as Thrawn continued scrolling.

"Correct. At least we know who some of his aliases are now."

She felt Eli twitch through the Force. _Cygni. Of course._

"Anyway, this came through while you were talking with those senators. I thought you'd like to know." Yularen's lips thinned.

Thrawn's red eyes flicked up. "Thank you, Colonel."

Yularen grunted. "It was your idea that got us there. Except I'm afraid there isn't all good news."

"What now?" Eli asked.

Yularen handed Thrawn his datapad. 

That frown deepened enough to tell Shaira the news must not be pleasant.

The Colonel took a deep breath. "Out of all the tibanna cylinders recovered from the _Dromedar_, twelve were... empty."

Eli's mouth dropped open. "Sixty percent were empty? _How?_"

Shaira sighed. "I doubt you're going to find out."

"Unfortunately so. It seems he went through the backs, but the hull was untouched."

There was a long moment of silence in which the room appeared to grow darker.

Thrawn broke it. “Do you have a record of all Nightswan's activities?”

The Colonel gestured to the datacard in Thrawn's datapad. "It's all in the files."

“Has Nightswan tried anything on Coruscant?” Eli questioned, his expression speaking of his frustration of not being able to see Thrawn’s screen.

“He may have, but we’ve got the best bodyguards and dojos to train them in the Empire. Anything he tried wouldn’t make a dent,” Yularen answered, his voice still painfully close to defeat.

“One would think Nubia equally impervious to such attacks. Yet the infiltration of the Circle Mayor’s office staff would suggest otherwise,” Thrawn said softly, his red eyes burning. He handed Shaira the card after the information had been successfully downloaded.

She thanked him, proceeded to analyse the data filing in on her screen, shifting so Eli could see.

“That was a unique case,” Colonel Yularen growled. “He managed to get the entire kitchen staff fired, then got his own people in there. Once you have people on the inside, you can make as much unrest as you want.”

“Is there unrest here?” Thrawn asked.

“Are you kidding? Go down two thousand levels, and you’ll find all the unrest you could ever want. Go down five thousand, and you might as well be in Wild Space.”

Shaira felt a small flicker of annoyance from Eli.

“Do the bodyguards have selected dojos?” Thrawn queried.

“Not that I know of,” Yularen said slowly. “Hmmm, I see where you’re going with this. Any thoughts, Miss Or’lei?”

She looked up from her datapad. Something felt off, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was yet. Cygni had escaped the blockade around Uba, but that was too far away from Boz Pity for him to get there in time to see the action. _I hate how I know Cygni and Nightswan are the same person yet until I have evidence I can't do anything._ So if Cygni has been in the Uba system, then who was the Nightswan that had escaped Boz Pity? Something definitely didn't seem right. “This Nightswan figure. What exactly is his goal? And _ why_? Someone so organized wouldn’t just stick his hands in things for the fun of it. The tactics recorded at Boz Pity were messy, especially for Nightswan. I have confirmation that he wasn’t entirely involved and that the insurgents that _ were _ fully involved were collaborating with a criminal group, which explains a few things.”

“That was likely why Nightswan was not entirely involved. Where did this confirmation come from?” Thrawn’s red eyes assessed her.

She didn’t blink, looking him evenly in the eye. “The Grand Assassin.”

The temperature dropped a few degrees.

Thrawn’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “Who is the Grand Assassin?”

“A trustworthy source,” she said, a little too sharply. “I can’t exactly walk around answering questions. That isn’t my job.”

Nervous energy rolled off Eli in small waves.

Yularen cut in. “I suggest we take this discussion to the next room. Do you care for a drink of pale Idrobian wine?”

The subject changed from there, and Shaira was left wondering why she could smell a strange scent of a person that hadn’t been there before.

* * *

**One Day after the 'Academy Discussion’**

Shaira frowned at her datapad. Accessing Commandant Deenlark’s personal file cache had been easy. She just wasn’t expecting to see _ that_. Row upon row upon row of files streamed down her screen, numbered with each student’s identification. By the size of the files, it looked like the real deal.

Yet she’d been scrolling for over an hour, slowly so as not to accidentally rearrange any of the files and alert anyone to her rather illegal presence, and hadn’t found Orbar’s number.

_ 150002147, 150002148, 150002149… _

By now the symbols were blurring together, and she was finding that the longer she looked at a number, the more foreign and wrong the dialect seemed. She ran a hand roughly over her face, as if it would solve her problems. She’d done it far too many times.

_ Time for plan B, _ she hissed to herself.

“Is the encryption proving difficult?” Thrawn asked from his bed, his gaze cast up from the homework he had been effortlessly gliding through.

Above where Thrawn sat, Eli sank further into the mattress, his eyes taking on an even deeper glaze of worry. All this mental noise from Vanto was driving her mad.

She looked up at Eli, her eyes squinted against the sudden change of focus. “Hey, buddy. Eli,” she clicked her fingers. He glared down at her. “I’m past the encryption. I’ve done stuff like this before. Calm down. We’ll be fine.” She glanced back down at her datapad. “I think.”

“That’s a lot to base on just a ‘_think_’,” he growled.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly going to lie, was I?” she snapped, her voice raised but still lacking any emotion. “I have something else I have to try or I’m going to drown in numbers.”

“And what is that?” Eli asked, trying to filter the annoyance out of his voice.

_ I could use you, but there’s no way I’m going to convince you without messing with your head, and then Thrawn will actually really kill me. _

“A bug, or in technical terms, an invisible application I put in the system through the Flight Simulators. If this works, it’ll go to my position and then I can go from there,” she answered, already thinking about all the things that could go wrong.

_ I guess the worst-case scenario is Darth Vader comes storming in here and literally chops me in half. The worst-case scenario for everyone is that my friends who may or may not be dead will most certainly die. _

“An invisible application?” Thrawn repeated.

“It’s fairly simple. You integrate it into the base system and hide it away, giving it the appearance of the proper coding, but not operating unless activated. It’s completely invisible and _ I _ can’t even see it, and it doesn’t interfere with anything. It’s kinda like a search program that goes through the entire system.”

“So it is not a virus.”

“Nooo. A virus is _ not _ something I want to play around with, especially on Coruscant.” Her fingers tightened slightly around the datapad.

Thrawn pondered this, a new thread forming in his complex mind. “And it is completely invisible to all who may wish to find it?”

“Yeah.”

“I see.”

She added the new thread to her collection of memories. It may be nothing, but she wasn’t going to let that nothing become a something.

Shaira tapped a few things out on her datapad after she had exited Deenlark’s files, praying to the Force and her many questionable abilities that this didn’t turn out terrible. After locking it, she allowed herself to sink down into the bottom bunk bed. “Now we wait.”

She closed her eyes as her head hit the pillow, drifting out into the Force. She felt that cold tug on her being as the icy claws of the dark side pulled at her, but she pushed it away. The grey between the darkness and blinding light was much more comfortable.

She reached through the void that was not quite black, not quite white, the phantom touch of water silky on her mind’s skin. Something gently touched her shoulder.

This was her mind. What would-

She froze half turn, the hand still on her shoulder. Roundish jaw. That one brown-freckle stain. The tiny white spot on his nose.

Her older brother.

Jordan.

And then she heard a harsh song, a wavering pitch. She stared at the lightsaber balanced in his open palm.

Her lightsaber.

She mustered the strength to look into his eyes.

They were closed.

She glanced frantically between her lightsaber and his face. _ What does this mean? _

Everything whited out.

She saw herself, holding her lightsaber. Only one red blade glowed from the hilt. She faced Thrawn. She had no face.

The horror pushed her back into blindness.

A small shield surrounded her. Veins of electricity crawled up from the ground as if to choke her. They couldn’t touch her.

She was falling. Flying. Crying? Why was she crying?

She held her younger self by the throat. She was yelling at herself. The words made no sense. Blood dripped from both their hands.

A blue hand gently touched her face. A hand. Blue hand. Blue hand? She felt something on her lips, and that was the last straw.

She fell.

Shaira volted forwards on the bed, just missing smashing her forehead against the bottom of the top bunk. Managed to clamp down on the sharp curse word that tried to escape. Coughed to mask her terrified confusion.

Eli and Thrawn said nothing.

But she felt his red eyes on her without having to look, and then a very important detail came to the front of her mind. Thrawn could see in infrared.

_ Shyte. _

* * *

**Present Day**

Pieces of her song lyrics came to dominate her thoughts unbidden and unwanted.

_ What was the day, the day, the day _

_ Where we wished our childhood away? _

This was not what she wanted to think about at the moment.

_ How was the day, the day, the day _

_ When we wished our childhood away? _

Not now.

_ Did the nights grow dark? _

_ Did we curse the lark? _

_ Were we lost at sea? _

_ Did we cut away glee? _

Now that she thought about it, maybe she did put a _ little _ too much meaning in there.

_ Cause now the nights are dark _

_ And the stars are cold _

_ The sea is too dry _

_ And laughter seems old _

That one was called _ Dark Days._ Too close to her heart, that was.

_ Call me a river _

_ But my eyes are dry _

_ Call me a lover _

_ But my heart is mine _

_ Try to take it, take it _

_ Try to take it, take it _

_ Try to take it, take it _

_ But you won’t break it, break it _

Catchier song, completely unrelatable. _ You Can’t Take My Heart. _ She had tried opera, and that, surprisingly, had been popular.

_ See the blood rain from the sky _

_ The green strokes from a deadly paintbrush _

_ Fly, flee from wicked steel jaws _

_ And die, die for a proper cause _

She hated that one. The higher-ups of the Empire had loved it, even though when listening to it she could hardly even tell what she was saying. _ Space Fangs_. Where she got these names and ideas, who knew. Probably Thrawn, if he listened to them.

_ Crap, can Thrawn decipher music? Thrawn: Treason… shyte, he can. _

Shaira mentally slapped herself. She was losing track of what was being exchanged between Thrawn and Colonel Yularen. Last subject had been bombing methods, and now they were talking about-

Bloody hell, they were discussing Boz Pity.

She curled her toes under the table to keep the visible part of her body free from tension. There was an itch crawling over her damn right leg injury, and it would be rude to scratch it. Frickin’ manners, stupid inventions.

When had she sunk to such a foul mood? When was the last time she wasn’t in a bad mood?

_ Good question, for another time. Now, Boz Pity, and the mess that wasn't there before I woke up. I’ll keep answers to a minimum. Yularen won’t share anything from his contact with the Grand Assassin. Not while I’m here. He doesn’t know me well enough. Thrawn will be the one to ask me, then, and after that Yularen will chip in. How unfortunate for me that Thrawn’s one of the only people who actually read the reports. _

“Miss Or’lei, the last place the Grand Assassin was stationed was Boz Pity, was it not?”

Ah. Bingo.

“Yes,” she said, calmly looking into his red eyes. Understanding there were a lot more questions he wanted to ask.

“Yes, the Grand Assassin pulled a hard victory out from certain defeat. The losses were heavy, but could have been far worse had she not intervened,” Yularen put in, his tone still conversational.

Ah. Double bingo.

She let her lips harden into a line thinner than they already were. “Yes.”

The discussion shifted away from her again.

A subtle touch breathed down her neck. The hairs lifted. She became hyper-aware of the knife strapped to her leg.

_ Something is off. _

The feeling was sudden, strong. Completely out of place. The next breath she took concentrated on smells. Nothing.

Nothing looked out of place, she couldn’t sense anything hostile entities.

_ Something is very off_.

In a smooth pattern, she pressed in the hidden button on her wrist for her ear protectors. Immediately, she fought back a hiss. The sharp whine of a blaster being charged pierced her ears.

‘Click!’

_ Safety- _

Later on, she would tell herself she didn’t know why she did it. A long time after, she still couldn’t find a good reason as to why that had been her reflex.

She flung herself in front of Thrawn.

He didn’t have time to react. Neither did she. The blaster bolt hit her square in the chest.

“Down!” she shrieked before the pain could overwhelm her. Whatever she wanted to say next was ripped out of her mouth. The force of the shot smashed them against the wall. She rolled around his back to take the blow.

She fell onto her stomach. And screamed. It wasn’t a light scream. It was a scream from someone who had just been shot, landed on the wound, and twisted her already damaged abdomen.

In her rage, she threw away the black and white spots bursting in her eyes. She couldn’t hear, but she wasn’t running blind. She barely registered Yularen yelling, or Eli scrambling next to Yularen, or Thrawn’s red eyes stretched wide as he tried to say something to her.

But she did register the knife in her hand. The pain twisting her face. Her teeth bared in a snarl. The table had been flipped over to shield them from the blaster fire blackening the parts of the wall behind them.

The metal shield over her chest burned onto her skin. She could already feel the dead skin lifting. Another ugly scar to add to the collection.

With another cry, she pulled herself off the ground. Her fingers were white from clutching the knife’s handle. Yularen returned fire over the upturned table.

Using most of her strength to piece her mind back together, she lifted the hem of her dress again. The blaster. She handed it to a surprised Lieutenant Thrawn.

Regaining her hearing briefly, she managed to growl: “Shoot the bloody idiots.”

Almost immediately, he peered around the side of the table and joined the fire.

She blinked as if it would help her. The knife.

_ Use it. _

The Force shouted in her head. Her mind-reading couldn’t be called on. Time for traditional-style.

She crawled on shaking hands, her back slouching against the table. It vibrated violently as another shot hit it.

With a ripple of the Force, she determined there were four. All were human. All were angry.

_ And all are about to be very dead. _

Shaira didn’t want to move. It took everything she had to stay conscious. The sensor on the wall back in the corridor had activated. The attackers wouldn’t get out that way. If she didn’t do this, they were about to be disintegrated along with any other hope.

Someone was edging around.

Her modified blood pumping, unnaturally long teeth bared, she leapt out from behind the table, out of the line of fire.

Her fist snapped back and smashed down on the man’s nose. It spurted blood over his face. Her fingers stabbed into his throat, and he crumpled. She sunk her knife into his hamstrings. He screeched like an animal. He wasn’t going anywhere.

The return fire ceased briefly, and she used her newly-acquired gun to retaliate. One went down with the first shot. Her back slammed against the wall opposite to Thrawn and the others, out of sight of the two left, her shoulder burning from a near miss. She couldn’t tell what was hurting and what wasn’t.

She ducked around and fired off a few shots, halting their movement. They were forced to duck behind some furniture. The back of her neck tingled again.

And a dagger disappeared into her calf.

She clamped down on a yelp, her boot reflexively meeting the man’s face. He didn’t move again.

She tried to steady herself against the wall, but everything felt… wrong.

_ Poison. Kriffing hell_.

Take the knife out now, and she’d bleed to death. Leave it in, and the poison would leech further in.

_ Frick it. _

She spat a curse out loud, throwing the knife held in her hand at one of the two attackers as he looked around the side. It hit him square in the face. She held back her vomit as she felt his life energy die.

_ Let’s not do that. _

In the last assassin’s rage, the remaining human attempted to charge them. She got two shots out before Thrawn promptly blasted her shoulder. She went down, and Yularen stunned her.

Everything was fading. The chanting in Shaira's head drowned out the sounds around her. It was too blurry to see who was trying to right her. When had she fallen?

_ Stay awake, stay awake, stay awake… _

But she couldn’t grasp her slippery consciousness. With the last of her thoughts, she was able to gesture to the knife sticking out of her calf. Then form an X with two fingers.

And then she lost focus.

She couldn’t form a thought or action after that.


	11. Don't Wake Me Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wooo! Another update! Yeah! Let's do this!  
I almost cried this one is really sad don't yell at me pls.
> 
> Shaira is stuck in unconsciousness along with old memories.

Thrawn watched helplessly as Shaira’s body went slack. He wasn’t sure what she meant by the X, but he suspected it was poison. This was confirmed as she paled to a deathly white, the light pink cruelly drained out of her face.

She’d been shot in the chest. It could have been him, and she would be safe, but she had chosen otherwise. And now she was likely going to die.

He shouldn’t care for the life of a single human. The Chiss Ascendency came first in his decisions, as it always had. He should not constantly worry about her safety. But he did, she didn’t know, and as he eased her into his arms as Yularen shouted into a comm, he also didn’t quite know why.

With gentle blue fingers, he stretched open her black eye. It was already glazed over. That was not a good sign. His hand brushed over the blackened wound on her chest. It encountered a hard shell.

He frowned.

To test his theory, he pressed slightly harder onto her wound. It was, in fact, a chestplate, the charred pieces of dress flaking off to reveal more of the ashen surface. His ruby eyes narrowed, noticing how her temperature was edging into the infrared.

_ She does not disappoint, does she? _

He carried her over to the door. The response on Coruscant would likely be quick, he theorized, his eyes running over the four bodies strewn about on the floor.

Vanto looked dazed, and he quietly noted to address that later. 

He lay her down carefully, knowing her other injuries would not be kind to her if she was slouched against the wall for too long. As he adjusted her position, a tiny, crushed object fell out of her left hand.

Aris had figured it out also._ How interesting, _he hissed to himself in Cheunh. 

Mitth’raw’nuruodo did not have regrets. He made errors, certainly, but mistakes were very few.

It was hard not to notice the poison was working very quickly.

As he breathed in a slow sigh to ease the tension in his shoulders, he reflected that he may yet have one.

She had saved his life, and he had waited too long. He had seen her reactions to him as she gradually began to understand him, and he had tried to destroy his. It hadn’t worked. _ Another reminder of how many things come unexpectedly._

He idly wondered what Thrass would say. Despite the situation, Thrawn smirked.

* * *

She couldn’t make heads or tails or sides of it. Everything was blue, then nothing was blue, then everything would go dark. And her entire body felt like it was on fire, but she felt horribly cold.

She tried to pull together a single, logical little thought, but she couldn’t. The patterns of her mind kept turning into ash whenever she touched them. So she just floated in the everything and nothing and something.

And then the memories came to her.

_ She stood rim-rod straight and stared Spenc Orbar down. She was taller than most, and she planned to use that to her advantage. She could feel his sudden spiteful courage crumble. _

_ He remembered clearly the last time he had tried anything, and here he was, trying it again. Just this time, she could actually knock him out. Accidentally, she reminded herself wryly. _

_ Combat class. Boxing division. _

Orbar’s gonna go down hard,_ she thought with satisfaction. _

_ They circled. The match had started. In a singlet and shorts, old wounds were bared for all to see in pallets of grey and pale pink. She didn’t flex them like they were honourable battle wounds, but she didn’t try to hide them either, letting him know that she wasn’t someone who just sat at a desk all day. _

_ Orbar was strong, she would give him that. But he wasn’t illegal-genetic-testing strong. _

_ She was. _

_ All it took was a few punches and a knee to the gut and she slammed him down on his back. The five seconds passed, and then a sharp tune signalled the end. _

_ If only that could end the conflict between them as well. _

_ When she helped him up, he wouldn’t meet her gaze. The others outside the square said nothing. Class continued. _

She couldn’t seem to remember when that had happened. Or where. A school. Her school? Surely not. He was too old to be at her school. She didn’t recognize the uniform she was wearing. Her school didn’t wear grey.

_ She waded through the shallow waters. At eight years old, they came up to her neck. The algae was staining her clothes green, the sluggish current tugging at her pants. _

_ Her back hurt. It felt raw. Blood? _

_ Everything was too quiet. Too peaceful. _

_ She saw her father on the bank, his face red and eyes full of cold rage. His mouth moved. She couldn’t quite hear him. _

_ Was he yelling? _

_ She walked deeper, and the black mud swallowed her feet further. Something could be felt twisting back and forth beneath the surface, but she wasn’t worried about that. The water was safe. The water was calm. Warm. Welcoming. _

_ If only she could go deeper, deeper, everything could stay that way. _

She spluttered on water. No, not water. Water was cold and dark and dangerous. It had tried to consume her. Steal her away.

_ She sat beneath the willows, the wind tangling her hair. This was the only place she could untie it and feel unwatched. Unnoticed. _

_ Ugly girl, she could hear her mother snarl. You need makeup. You should look pretty. Wear some contact lenses, nobody wants to see your eyes. And untie your hair, it hides your face better. _

_ She tied her hair back up again. No. She would not listen to someone like that. _

But she bought you chocolate yesterday,_ a little voice inside her head said. _ You should be grateful.

_ The brown spider in her hand twitched. She put it down gently, watching it scuttle away into the dead leaves. If only she could turn into a spider and crawl away. Then she could escape this cage. _

_ With a careful hand, she pulled out the silver chain from her hip pocket. It made a light clinking sound as it shifted around in her palm. Like the surface of the stream, it glittered. Two small stones hung from the middle, one black, one amber. _

_ Nick had given it to her shyly. They’re to match your eyes, he’d said quietly. _

_ Ironic, really. _

_ She enjoyed Nick’s company. He reminded her of Jordan. She didn’t know what had prompted him to give her such a beautiful gift, but she appreciated it. She had returned the favour, and there was barely a day she had seen Nick without her gift. It gave her a warm feeling she didn’t understand. _

Legs crawled under her skin. Something was trying to wriggle out of her flesh. She couldn’t see it; the sensation continued to writhe and squirm while she flailed around blindly.

Numbers echoed in her ears. They meant nothing but somehow something.

_ Six. That’s the only thing she could process. There were six of them, one of her, and she was sick of this. She should be scared, but last night the ability to feel any emotion had been beaten out of her. _

_ She was tired. She just wanted to go to school, finish her work, and continue searching the riverbank at home for any sign of new insect species. Avoiding those idiots was easy, she just always stayed in sight of a roaming teacher. Today, however, there was no such safety. _

Safety is such a meaningless word,_ she hissed to herself. _

_ The jabs were the usual. ‘Still living under a rock? Do you even know who (so-and-so) is?’ She would usually duck around them and continue walking, face blank but insides squeezing painfully. _

_ This time, she blinked, and six bodies surrounded her. They were twisted at odd angles, bones protruding from places they normally wouldn’t and green uniforms stained with blood. _

Hang on. This wasn’t how this one went. She’d done what she always did. Weave around them and say nothing. Avoid their gazes. Betray not a single emotion. 

Why were they dead? She would never kill anyone. It was against her morals. Why were they dead?

_ Why were they dead? _

_ That was the only question she could ask herself. Not how or who. Why? _

_ The news continued on. The reporter showed no hatred or shock in his face. _

_ He should, something told her. He should show a negative reaction in his face. But he didn’t. His words were fast and light, almost… excited. _

_ She glanced to her parents and older brother. They showed no signs of disgust or horror at the reporter’s lack of understanding. _

_ This situation was delicate. People had _ died,_ for hell’s sake. And yet no one, not even her family, seemed to think this was something that should be grieved upon. She stared at Jordan’s face. There was the slightest crease in his forehead and a tiny darkness in his eyes. _

_ At least he understood. Possibly. But he was hardly someone to follow in a serious situation. _

_ So she dissolved the horror and confusion in her mind and chest, pushed back the bile in her throat, and continued watching. Because if the people are older than you, they know better, right? _

_ Because death must not be that bad after all, right? Death was peaceful. _

_ And yet she never asked herself why people were considered deserving of death if it was not a punishment. _

She couldn’t summon any feeling to react to seeing that again. Emotion had only ever brought her scars upon her back. She had stood up to her father, once, out of anger.

Because how dare he treat her that way, right? No one else hurt their children like that.

She would never forget why her hands were so insensitive. She’d never forget what emotion gave her, or what it took from her.

_ Never forget. _

_ That’s what she’d always be told. Never forget that people don’t care. Never forget that people have it worse than you. Never forget that you could have no parents, and you’d be taken away to live with a stranger. _

_ And she’d always remember. She could tell as soon as that particular expression crossed the face of her mother or father, that’s what they’d tell her. That she was lucky. _

_ And then they’d continue by telling her that her academic abilities were because of them. That without her parents, she’d be nothing. _

_ But she’d never understood why they’d call her nothing anyway. _

_ And if she was smart because of them, then why did they always talk about how school was so bad when they were young? _

_ Yet she never said that out loud, because a crooked part of herself thought that if she suffered for it, she must have deserved it. That some questions shouldn’t be answered. _

But all that was okay. All that was okay because soon she could wake up, and she could get dressed for school, and Nick would be there. He would comfort her, and he would tell her about the day when she could find the courage to stand up to her parents, and everything would be fine. And Corban would cheer her up, Adam would talk about all the times things went badly when Corban tried to cheer her up, and Ethan would smile and attempt to be positive. Max would be his goofy, helplessly stupid self, and Korah would tell him how doing that was not a good idea.

Everything would be fine, because Jordan would playfully shove her and she’d shove him back, doing her best to see the sunlight, and the harsh song of the birds would interrupt her thoughts while she ate breakfast. And her little brother would run around, and the two dogs outside would do the same.

Everything would be okay, because despite her bad days, and although people would bully her, there would still be light in the world. Because her friends would always be there for her, and she would be there for them.

And then she woke up in an Imperial hospital on Coruscant.

And she cried.


	12. Third Time's A Charm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even an assassin cannot escape the watchful eyes of those seeking to kill her.  
And she was a fool to believe things were over.  
In fact, they had just begun.

_ Hate is a rather petty emotion. It does not matter how it may have been generated, or how right it is. It will always be petty. _

_ Even more so if you let it lead you to the Dark Side, where your hatred and rage can become unchecked. _

_ You can hate someone’s snarky attitude that compares to a wasp or their horrible shoes. You can hate their distasteful arrogance or their horrible language skills. It’s still hatred, even if you’re right to hate it. _

_ However, there is one type of hate you are entirely entitled to. This hate can consume you, and it’s perfectly fine. _

_ People hate. _

_ I dislike people. _

Shaira could deal with holocalls. She could deal with unpleasant people. She could deal with holocalls with unpleasant people. But what she could not deal with was holocalls with unpleasant people while an unpleasant person held said holo.

Especially if said equation involved the Grand _ kriffing _ Inquisitor.

She felt his dark, highly disturbed presence long before he strolled through the automatic doors, but it was another kick in the gut to have to look at his face.

“This is a really bad _fricki__ng _ time if you don’t bloody mind.”

“I do not seem to care,” he hissed evenly, his yellow-red eyes blazing and his long fingers curling just enough to speak of anger.

“No, of course you don’t. So you were the one who drew the short straw.”

“I completed my assignment. The same cannot be said for you.”

“Black Sun captains don’t run around with bright glowy laser-sticks. The reason I outrank you is because I can be subtle and I don’t solve every problem with the swish of a lightsaber, if you can recall.”

His fingers curled tighter just briefly, and then relaxed. His lips twisted in a satisfied smirk. “The Emperor is becoming impatient.”

“He wouldn’t have to be impatient if everything went according to plan. Instead, I had an Admiral running all over my op.” Shaira’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits as she leaned forward and pulled thoughts from his mind, her jaw clenched to keep her gaze from showing anything._ Lothal._ “Now I have to go underground. _ Again. _”

“If you are having difficulty, one of my Inquisitors can always finish the assignment.”

“Don’t try to insult me. It has never improved the situation. Why are you here?”

The Grand Inquisitor’s ashen face darkened. “If you recall, the Emperor is _ displeased."_

She raised her eyebrows. “Yes, I gathered that. But why are you clutching the holoprojector like a bloody lifeline?”

In answer, he held it up, the blue picture flashing to life.

Shaira’s eyes widened, and she immediately dipped her head, clenching her teeth as her neck cramped. “My lord.”

“Assassin. I am not pleased with your progress.”

She felt just the ghost of a hand around her throat, and in fear, she snapped the walls in her mind up higher. It was just a reflex, Vader couldn’t read her mind anyway, but terror stirred deep in her chest. “There have been a few setbacks, my lord. The target was killed, but their ringleader escaped in the chaos.”

“I do not want excuses,” Vader warned, his fists clenched. “Only results. Why have you not pursued him?”

“I am currently confined in a hospital, my lord. There was an assassination attempt on Colonel Yularen and two other officers, as well as me.”

The Grand Inquisitor’s hard eyes widened, just slightly.

Shaira felt Vader’s anger deepen. “I was not informed.”

She winced, the Force tightening around her neck just slightly. “The attempt is being kept quiet, my lord.”

The silence dragged out, the rage-red cloud that was Vader’s mind swirling in a furious storm. “Your time is limited, assassin. Do not disappoint me.”

The holo flickered out.

The Pau’an hissed. “You were a mistake from the start.”

She lifted her head, the sensation around her throat gone. She tipped her head at the Grand Inquisitor. “Enjoy your trip to Lothal.” And in a moment of defiance, though she held rank above him, she straightened as much as she could, staring at him eye to eye. “Doom will send you into flames.”

And as her eyes flashed with their bright golden-yellow, her pupils sharp like the edge of a double-bladed sword, she actually felt his mind recoil in fear.

He feared what the Empire had created.

And to tell the truth, so did she.

* * *

Not long after he left, a nurse came in and replaced her fluids. Several questions were exchanged, and a heavy dose of slow-acting pain medication was given.

After the nurse was gone, Shaira began to feel her thoughts run around in circles. Something wasn’t right.

It hadn’t been the nurse. No, it was something else. Something… different.

She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. But even now that the Grand Inquisitor was gone, that strange feeling persisted. Staring at the white duracrete ceiling, she could feel the sensation rippling down into her toes like swift waters.

She tried to calm the feeling, but it didn’t leave. It strengthened, nipping at the edges of her mind like a crazed dog.

And then her eyes met a tiny spot on the ceiling.

She almost missed it. It was purely innocent. Until she narrowed her eyes. And then it wasn’t.

It wasn’t a camera. The signal those gave off were easier to detect. But audio, however, was different.

The sensation that was crawling across her skin was now screaming in her ears in every language she knew. _ Run. Hide. It is dangerous. _

She was a fool to think those who were after her wouldn’t follow her still. _ If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. _

How true.

How could she protect others if she couldn’t do that now for herself?

_ If they shot at Thrawn first, they’ll be after him too. _

And so she snatched up her datapad from the tray next to the cot and powered it on, inputting the emergency code that would shift her persona to the Grand Assassin. She needed to get a message to Colonel Yularen, and the only encryption that would be safe to do that with would be the Grand Assassin’s.

After that, when the message had been scheduled to send at the proper time and exhaustion took over her, she managed to revoke the code and power off the datapad.

As the medication pulled her under, she felt the danger crawl back.

And that fear, that darkness that crept at the edge of her vision, that shadow that pursued her and watched her from the depths of her mind, crawled out again.

It crawled out again to torture her because of her failures.

She wouldn’t escape them until she died.

But she vowed that she wouldn’t let those same mistakes take Thrawn and Eli.

* * *

When Thrawn entered the room, the first thing he noted was Shaira’s bloodshot eyes.

Her gaze followed him silently as he sat down next to her stark-white hospital bed, trying his best to seem non-threatening. The doctors that had attended to her had informed him the poison contained elements of a certain type of neurotoxin, which could contribute to temporary confusion. They had also notified him of her extremely unusual vital and bio signs, the only reason she was still alive.

He stored that information away for future reference.

“How do you feel?” he asked softly.

Her voice was hoarse. “Like someone bea me wa a stick,” she croaked, struggling to form all the words properly and wincing when she heard how it sounded.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Fa sevewal days,” she added.

“I assumed they injected pain relief,” he said slowly.

“Thuh did. But stiw.” She rolled her shoulders carefully and the slightest narrowing of her eyes told him that she was hiding most of the pain. “And my bwain’s all therw, thank wu.”

His eyebrow raised again.

“You don’t need to spweak slowly,” she said, her voice partially clearer. “It’s muh tongue. It feels weird. Numb.”

“I see,” he replied. Most of the colour was back in her face, but she still looked a little too pale and her lips were compressed into a thin line. “Do you remember everything? Your name and age?”

She frowned at him. “Name: Aris Or’lei.”

He waited for her to continue. She didn’t.

“And?” he asked, forcing himself to maintain his mild gaze.

“I know my age, Thrawn. And everything else along with it.”

He bit back a sigh. Humans. _ Frustrating. _

“I would not have been surprised if you had tried to fake memory loss,” he said finally. “Simply to see what would happen.”

Her gaze darkened, and he read in her glazed eyes that she would have known exactly what would have happened. Apparently, it did not seem that it would be pleasant.

It seemed nothing in her experiences were pleasant.

Shaira attempted to sit up in the momentary pause of conversation, and Thrawn’s hand reflexively shot out to stop her. It was, however, unnecessary. The moment she moved, her hands gripped the sheets and her jaw clenched. She quickly lay back down again, which meant Thrawn’s blue hand rested awkwardly over her midsection. Her hand automatically went to his in surprise at the sudden contact, and he noticed beneath the standard white hospital gown she was wearing that there were stitches that were too low to have been caused by the blaster shot.

She reached the conclusion that he had realized this, her face rapidly going through reactions too fast to pinpoint, and her hand was _ still over his._

There was a long period where both he and Shaira were staring at each other’s hands.

He moved first. He wasn’t sure whether he should have felt secretly glad when a tiny flash of disappointment showed in the slight sag of her shoulders.

There was another drawn out time of silence.

“I would like to thank you,” Thrawn murmured.

Her gaze snapped to him, not without another wince. “What for?”

One of his eyebrows lifted elegantly. “For saving my life.”

“Right, that. So did you find out who tried to light us up like Empire Day fireworks?”

He brought up the dagger, its patterned hilt catching the lights with a deadly glitter. Her eyes narrowed as she surveyed it, but she made no move to take it.

Thrawn watched her, fascinated as the opaque thoughts in her eyes began piecing things together, twisting into foreign shapes while she searched for an answer. He glimpsed flickers of emotion, fear and suspicion, choked away as she sorted through her vast expanse of dark knowledge. And through that haze of calculations and those strangely assessing eyes that seemed to see through all, there was still that frustrating emptiness. That piece in her mind that was always missing, that void he couldn’t quite pin down.

But none of that mattered at the moment.

In a small movement, she tipped her head. In the depths of her gaze, recognition flared.

“You recognize it.”

This time she did take it, his words sealing off the thoughts in her eyes rather than intensifying them. As she ran skilled fingers over it, he noted that her fingers followed the pattern as if she was familiar with it in a deeper way than he had first assumed. When she tapped it, the flicker over her face, a slight twitch of surprise, signalled she had realized it had been 3D-printed. He could almost hear her say ‘the similarities in weight are surprising’.

“Yes. It’s ceremonial, made about a year ago,” she said, voice distant and disturbingly cold.

“So you do study art, correct?” Thrawn asked, interest pricking his tone. He held back a wince.

He assured himself, in a strange moment of uncertainty, that it was unlikely she would read beneath it. _ Her social skills are severely lacking, considering she can read faces with startling accuracy. Perhaps she simply does not wish to realize some things? _

“Not like you.” Her fingers caressed the swirls gently, mapping out the markings in her mind. Her tone was cautious and more hesitant than it usually was. “But you know as well as I do that this wasn’t made by our oh-so-lovely attackers. I’m sure you’ve already told the ISB about that.”

She flicked the dagger over in her palm, eyes documenting every tiny knick and wear. Her gaze slid smoothly back up to him, and he forced himself to stay relaxed as her predatory stare picked him apart. “Why are you here, while your friend waits from afar?”

_ ‘Your friend’? Something does not seem right. _

His eyes narrowed briefly. “The less others know about the details of the attack, the more time we have.”

She tipped her head. “So you believe he is the weaker point for others to exploit? Or do you fear I’m the one who will exploit him?”

For someone so young, her gaze could pin him with ease, reaching into the back of his skull as if to scrape up the secrets there.

_ And for someone who considers me a friend, she certainly does not allow for any attachment. _ He ensured his cool facade was still in place before he continued.

“Why do you assume that?”

Shaira managed to draw herself up, though her aura already reached him with ease. “You’re deflecting my questions.”

He let his glowing stare brighten, crawling across her skin as if searching for the answers to questions that had not yet been asked. He noted that the skin along her forearms prickled. _ Interesting. It is almost as if she expects an attack. _

“Do you fear I know something you do not?”

She hissed out a curse that was far too fast to catch. “Why do we do this? Trust may be an illusion, but sometimes it’s in the least _ necessary _ if we’re going anywhere. You think we were attacked because of my connections? You’re right. We were. You believe I’m hiding something? You’ll wander to the ends of the Earth in search of an answer and fall off the edge.” She switched to Meese Caulf, and underneath it, Thrawn suspected there was more connected to the change. “ _ I’m sick of playing games. It gets me nowhere, and nobody wins. You may find it hard to believe, but I care when people die. We may have had completely different experiences, but I can tell you this with all of my frail conviction. My mind was not made for war. My eyes were not made to see the weaknesses in my enemies. My body was not made for battle. But here I am, with skills I do not deserve and in a place I should never have been. So what are you trying to prove, Thrawn? That you know who I am and what I’ve done? You don’t, and you never truly will. You want an answer to one of your burning questions? Here’s one. I do not care if I die as long as the people I care about live. You know that I’ve lost people close to me. But let me tell you what you don’t know.” _ Shaira leaned forward, her long canines flashing. Yellow ate away at the other colours in her eyes, pupils pointed slits. _ “You will never know what it cost me.” _

* * *

Aris was a lover of threes.

Thrawn found this information most interesting as he dug further into her works and thought over her previous actions, her mysterious words still churning in his ears. _"Y__ou will never know what it cost me.” _

Together, her first and last name had three syllables.

She switched between three styles of combat.

She always wore three or more colours.

As far as he had gathered, she was the middle of three children in her family.

And she always, _ always _ had three important focuses in her paintings.

Except for three.

And _ that _ was intriguing.

It was a message of some sorts. A message only someone who knew her completely would understand. And he was now completely devoted to understanding it, especially now that he knew she served a high-ranking shadow.

_ The Grand Assassin. Not quite who I would have expected her to align with. _

The first painting was relatively simple. The background was black with just the slightest touch of dark blue. However, despite it being portrayed as space, there were no stars. Not a single spot of white. Even the focus of the painting, the three planets, was strangely out of place. The first two planets were grey swirled with silver, made in such a way that the surface seemed to move. The third planet was completely different. It was painted in vibrant gold, so bright it was impossible not to focus on it. And therein lay the hint.

In Aris’s paintings, there would always be three things coloured differently, often in the order of bronze, silver, and then gold, if those were the colours chosen. Here, two of them were silver, and one was gold. Bronze was missing.

Thrawn narrowed his eyes as he began assessing the piece. The missing stars meant the planets were alone, unwatched and unknown. Unlikely to ever be discovered. This fact was particularly important, as Aris never said anything about her home planet. Here were the clues.

The second point was the colours. Aris always made gold the most important colour in her pieces. So the third planet was, unsurprisingly, the focus. And the pattern was not swirled but textured with water. The meaning was as bold as the colour. _ Life. _ This was her home planet. A closer inspection showed ripples and cloud-like forms throughout the sphere. The terrain was varied, then. Not like Tatooine, where the land mostly consisted of sand.

The third point was the first two planets. The swirls symbolized that their meaning was ever-changing, depending on the person’s point of view. Their importance was still nowhere near the significance of the third.

The fourth was their size and alignment. They were all roughly the same size and were aligned in a straight line. This spoke more of Aris herself and her analytical personality; how she preferred to look at things one at a time in a particular order and was greatly intrigued by the finer details.

The painting itself did speak, if only a little, about her culture. Her people did not wish to be watched but their planet’s closeness to the other planets suggested they had no issue watching others. The planet’s complicated surface also spoke of many different types of peoples with various attitudes and ways, not just one.

_ Chaotic. _

He found another interesting fact: her people did not share her resignation from emotions. In fact, they were very expressive. Likely why he could never match up her artwork with any other artists; while she was still a product of her people’s ways, she was not a classic embodiment of her culture nor a strict follower. Her reserved qualities, both mental and physical, were likely a product of ostracization. Her other paintings never showed anything romantic if the piece was about her, which further confirmed his theory.

_ She doesn’t want attachments. Fairly unsurprising. _

The missing stars could also be interpreted as loneliness and… fear. She _ feared _ attachment. The darkness behind the planets without any hint beyond said that she had purposely closed herself off.

That was another clue. The message that was slowly becoming clearer was not for a lover, and not for a friend. The attachment was not voluntary.

_ A family member. _

So that was who the message was for. Was it that she feared her home had been found, or that someone was searching for it? Or did she fear that she, as an individual, was being targeted? Her family must hold an essential key to her, and the mystery that surrounded her abilities and infuriating opaqueness.

If she hid something, what greater things did her family hide? Why could he not find any information on her family or relatives, even though she clearly had siblings that would have become known in her modest popularity?

A door whooshed open and closed behind him.

“Ensign Vanto.”

“Lieutenant. I’d tried to reach you over the comms, but you weren’t answering.” Eli looked around with poorly masked curiosity, his gaze flicking to the artwork. “Aris? Her work, I mean?”

“Yes,” Thrawn replied softly. “I hoped to gain some insight.”

“Did you, sir?”

Thrawn paused, thinking over how he could give an answer without giving anything away. “Perhaps. Further study is required.”

“So in other words, you _ have _ but you don’t want to tell me in case I slip around Aris?” He looked a little hurt and more than a little irritated. “I get it, sir.”

Thrawn looked at him from the corner of his eye. “Aris will notice if your attitude changes. It would be careless of me to put you in an uncomfortable position.”

Eli mulled that over. “I see, sir. Thank you for your consideration.”

Thrawn ignored the sarcasm.

“How is she?”

Thrawn let out a long breath, turning fully to address Vanto. “Mending. Her body shows a remarkable ability to heal quickly, considering the damage.”

“She was shot in the chest. I’d call that more than just damage,” Eli muttered, his forehead creased. “How long was she in the bacta tank?”

“Three days, approximately. I had suggested longer, but the medics were unfamiliar with her bio-signs and she required a different respirator. They did not want to find that she had negative reactions to bacta too late, as her medical records hold little information. Her seizures also contributed.”

“She had seizures? The poison?”

“A strange mixture of neurotoxins and venom. The medics could not identify nor neutralize it.”

Eli’s face transformed into horror. “Wait, but then she’ll-” He cut himself off, his gaze searching Thrawn’s expression for an answer as to why Thrawn did not seem to be concerned. “You mentioned a respirator. Why did she need a respirator?”

“Her body gathered the poison into her lungs where it was successfully discharged.”

“That… isn’t normal. At all.” Eli’s frown deepened as he tried to process the information.

Thrawn’s hand moved up to his chin in thought. “I had assumed so. Study of human anatomy did not speak of any such reactions. Research into other near-humans also did not show any results.”

Eli Vanto grimaced. “Well, no, sir. I’ve never heard of someone discharging poison through their lungs. It would just cause organ failure, wouldn’t it? And wouldn’t she drown anyway?”

“The amount of poison in her bloodstream was not significant. A medic informed me that a strange membrane over the insides of her lungs protected the alveoli from dying. The respirator simply ensured she didn’t experience oxygen deficiency, causing further issues.” Thrawn’s eyes glowed brighter. “It is rather interesting. Did your searches yield any results?”

Vanto sighed almost inaudibly at the subject change. “That’s what I came to talk to you about, sir…”

* * *

Shaira stared out over the city from the isolated platform, her fingers fiddling with the stitches in her abdomen from over her shirt. The wind tangled in her untied hair, and she jerked her head sharply to keep it away from her face.

The nurses attending to her had not been hard to fool.

Immediately, she saw her target. Down, into the depths of the city. She narrowed her eyes, her vision adjusting quickly to provide her with visual information.

_ Too easy. _

All of the humans had a tattoo that she recognized. Many wouldn’t think twice about it, but she knew what it was and what it signified. The edge of a half-circle, like the crescent of a moon, with a diamond held in between its two corners. It was very simple, but it had an almost sinister feel to it.

And that’s because it was.

It was the mark of Orbula.

Orbula was very particular with who they used. Marking people like property. An asset to be used and then discarded. They were nothing more than criminals with boots too big for their feet.

Unfortunately, some criminals were startlingly difficult to kill.

Nightclubs and bars littered Coruscant like flies over a rotten body, but there was a very specific one Orbula preferred. Their members would lounge there, admiring the pretty servers while they spoke of far murkier things.

And she was staring at it.

It was likely because of its many escape routes and its closeness to the underworld of Coruscant that its agents lingered there.

The extraction of that information had required some of her other, darker talents. When someone was exhausted, they were more susceptible to mental intrusions. It did not mean their screams were quieter. And what they screamed, well…

_ “He’ll find you! I swear he’ll find you, and he’ll kill you!” _

Shaira felt the hairs on her arms lift beneath the sleeves of her jacket. She never found out who _he_ was.

She had changed out of the medical gown soon after Thrawn had left. They were simple civilian clothes. Dark grey cargo pants, dark purple high-neck shirt, and a lighter purple jacket lined with black. The colour scheme was not something she’d voluntarily use, especially if she wanted to go walk-about, but the designs were functional and thanks to the bacta, the scar on her face was far less noticeable now.

Her health was stable again, and the poison was gone. Her head had felt a little fuzzy, but the long wander to her current location had soon cleared away the fog. She wasn’t confident enough to say she could take several hits, but when she had found one of Orbula’s lowest roaming down an alley, she had hit him from behind to see how well the organization took care of their members.

Quite well, apparently, considering the weight of the credits in her jacket.

Now, she wasn’t so low as to steal from the common civilian, but relieving a criminal from his credits was hardly a crime. More like a public service. He wouldn’t wake up for a long time, and when he did, he would have no idea what had happened.

It was a strange kind of comfort to know her skills had not left her and her recovery had not left any new injuries that could plague her. Perhaps if the same treatment had been given to her leg, she would not have such an awful injury now, but she was still grateful to the Force for not having to have a robotic leg.

Her breathing, however, had not recovered. Her breaths were thick and harsh in a way she hadn’t quite felt before. She hadn’t had a lot of time to read her medical report, but for all she knew her chest shouldn’t have been that tight.

_ Maybe it had something to do with the weird stuff going on in Thrawn’s head? He seemed more subdued than usual. _

Perhaps he had simply noticed that she was agitated, which was likely. She was often the one watching others, not the other way around. Even up here, she didn't feel safe. She could have been followed, tracked, documented. Her paranoia never failed to remind her how easy it was to go into a mission and never come out.

She checked the comm on her sleeve again.

The dark clothes and untied hair would do well to alter her usually well-groomed appearance. Some people in the upper levels knew her, but down here, there were different rules and ways of life. The Empire didn’t care what happened in the lower depths, as long as the elite could still sit in their fancy skyscrapers and watch the sun play along the floor from their crystal-clear windows.

Down here, the underworld ruled itself.

As the last light drained out of the skies, the shadows deepened and the world awakened.

Neon lights and holograms lit up in stark contrast to disguise the grime and filth. Dark figures in tight clusters slunk across platforms or huddled over tables outside nightclubs and bars. Children clung to adults and watched warily as speeders raced between the gaps in claw-like buildings. Stormtroopers became ever scarcer, disappearing as more people began filtering out from their run-down dwellings.

Various smells danced through the cold air, from oil to alcohol to spicy dishes wafting down from restaurants above.

_ Now for the plan of attack. _

She needed a false name. _ Carik Delvo would do. _ She needed a reason to be there. _ Hmmm… I’m looking for someone? I’m from a powerful shadow group interested in Orbula? _

_ The latter could work. I certainly have the physique and dark stare for it. _

She needed a big name, not too big, to drop if she got in a bad situation. _ The Midnight Sun. They wanted to look for possible new aliases. _

To tell the truth, Orbula would be very interested in an offer such as that. The Midnight Sun, contrary to the name, was an unknown. Powerful, respected in their ruthlessness. There were many rumours circulating across many planets who this ‘Midnight Sun’ was. None of them were quite true.

Shaira would know.

After all, the Grand Assassin had many names.

_ So, my name is Carik Delvo. I am a weapons expert working for the Midnight Sun. They are interested in possible new aliases. How did I know to go here? The Midnight Sun always knows. But seriously, okay… the Midnight Sun has their sources. Be vague. Arrogant people like to be vague and extremely smug. _

She checked her comm for the third time, ensuring it was set on silent. It had been wiped; Shaira would never leave information that easily, and neither would the Midnight Sun. If this was to work, she had to maintain a lie. That was why she hadn’t just withdrawn some credits from her account. She didn’t want to be traced in any way.

_ My name is Carik Delvo. I have an air of mystery and arrogance. You touch me, you risk the wrath of the Midnight Sun. _

And people didn’t risk the wrath of the Midnight Sun.

She tapped the holster on her hip to reassure herself of its continued existence, occupied with a standard blaster pistol. That was likely by order of Colonel Yularen, and it wasn’t an Imperial model. If she had an Imperial blaster, an E-11 or a DH-17, things could get unnecessarily complicated. It was possible Colonel Yularen had ordered one in for her, knowing exactly what she had in mind, or simply in co. She wouldn’t be surprised; after all, he had served under Anakin Skywalker. What she pulled off would have been pretty tame compared to the messes Skywalker had gotten himself into.

_ And look what Skywalker is like now. _

This mission could not go wrong. She needed that information, as soon as possible. Whoever had tried to kill them was with Orbula, and somehow knew about her pursuit of one of the Black Sun captains. That was not good. That meant Orbula was in an alliance with Black Sun, or were connected to it in some way. That golden dagger and its creator meant more than anyone else currently realized.

Even worse, that man who had bumped into her was likely the person who had put the tracker on her in the first place, or possibly even that cab driver. She had crushed it as soon as the firefight had started, but the fact that the man had easily made his way into the Alisandre and located her… there were definitely many people involved. It sent curls of fear deep into her chest.

She straightened her thoughts. She had a target, and she needed to destroy him. If she didn’t…

Shaira Derison shuddered. Out of the corner of her eye, she could almost see Vader’s shadow lurking behind her. Waiting. Watching. Ready to jump at the opportunity to throw her over the cliff’s edge.

He hated her more than she knew possible.

And even worse, Vader was all too capable of besting her _ without _ a lightsaber in a matter of minutes, no matter how many styles of combat she had mastered. He knew it, she knew it, and her friends had sure as hell known as well.

_ And I still don’t know why the Emperor was so interested in me and my... friends. _

She didn’t know where her friends had gone, or if they were still alive. She needed to stay in the now. Concentrate on the mission. Pull the pain and fear under the surface and make it fuel the Dark Side tugging at her thoughts. Because she was angry. And if she was going to be angry, she was going to use it. The Light Side would not help her with this mission.

_ I cannot let the past affect my loyalty to the Emperor. _

She almost laughed at the sarcasm in that statement. There was no loyalty. Only fear. Thrawn was a fool to come to the Emperor for assistance.

She needed to get everything off her chest before she continued with the plan, so she allowed her thoughts to continue.

Shaira couldn’t recall everything about Thrawn. As an experiment, she was lucky to have retained any memories at all. In a few weeks, she had almost lost a lifetime of knowledge.

And all for what?

Her long teeth clenched, and she was yet again reminded that her fate wasn’t the only thing that had forever changed.

Something crackled behind her.

She whirled around, her fists raised in reflex.

The dark eyes of a Zabrak stared back, and then he flickered and was gone.

_ Maul, Maul, that was Maul. How? Maul? How did he appear? Is he here? No, I can’t sense him. Was that an illusion? A trick? _

She let out a ragged gasp, not realizing she had been holding her breath. That had come out of nowhere. Was her mind getting weaker? Was Maul nearby? If he could mask his Force signature...

She hissed a curse out loud, forcing down the hysterics about to burst from her throat. It was still far from swearing, but it dissipated some of the terror that had struck her stomach. “If I can’t damn well face my thoughts, and I can’t bury them either, what the hell am I supposed to do with them? Eat them? And why Maul? If I fail Vader, I’ll die. If I fail this mission and get captured, I’ll die.”

_ I miss Fa’raan. _

She just needed time. Everything she had ever needed was time. Time to muster the courage to stand up to her father, time to express what she really thought. She needed time to improve in combat, to figure out why some people feared her. She needed time to tell Nick that she appreciated him. She needed time to tell all her friends that she appreciated them.

She needed time, now, to kill her dark thoughts and move on so no one else died because of her.

Yet, time ran away.

She took a deep breath, the sky crowded with buildings completely void of stars. The light from the planet choked them away. The sky seemed so far away, down here.

But she didn’t need to worry about getting off this planet quite yet. She had a challenge to meet, and Orbula was about to regret every glance taken in her direction.

She had a mission to complete, and she sure as hell wasn’t dying today.

And so she turned away to the back of the building, sprinted forwards, and jumped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY!!! An update! I'm sorry I haven't updated recently. I was scrolling through my works, listening to some good jams, and then BAM! I noticed I hadn't updated for like, a month. And so I started writing. And here it is! The next chapter shouldn't be too far away.
> 
> The Thrawn 'I-am-an-art-nerd' was fun to write. That scene was long overdue.  
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'm always looking out for feedback!


	13. The Past Will Forever Haunt the Future

_ The mind is dangerous. _

_ It can destroy enemies with deadly grace. It can tear apart kingdoms and destroy empires. It can annihilate an army with ease. _

_ It can plan the downfall of every creature in the universe and shut away any desire for mercy. _

_ It can lead a civilization, a planet, or a galaxy to ruin. _

_ But that is not all it can do. _

_ The mind is dangerous because it can destroy itself. _

**One Month and Three Weeks Before Graduation**

The corner of her mouth twitched.

She tried to hide it, but Thrawn’s gaze swung to her with assessing eyes.

She couldn’t hold it in any longer.

Her chuckle turned into a full-fledged laugh, her sides shaking with her amusement. Even smothering her mouth did nothing to stop it.

“What?” Eli asked, looking mildly offended. His hair was as mussed as Thrawn’s, and they were both on the floor resting after sparring.

Well, it was more an undignified form of Eli trying to dodge Thrawn’s attacks.

“Nothing, nothing,” Shaira said, gulping in air. “Ignore me.”

“Hey, I’m  _ trying, _ ” he shot back. “I’m on track to be a supply officer, not an ISB agent.”

_ Oh, if only you could read minds. Then you would know what other people truly have in store for you. _

“I said it was nothing, man.”

“Krayt spit.”

She dragged a hand over her face, giving in. “You look like you just had a rough-up with one of your siblings or something. I’m tired, bro. And I just tried caf and it’s  _ awful.” _

She yawned, baring her teeth. The air crackled suddenly, and she shut her mouth. She stared at Eli.

He looked at her weirdly.

“What?” she said, her eyes narrowed with confusion. “What is it?”

“Your teeth.”

She blanked for a second. Oh.  _ Oh. _

“Uhm… surprise?”

Thrawn said nothing. Eli frowned at her.

She glanced to the Chiss, but his face gave away nothing. “I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to say to that. They’re just like that.”

“Wait, they’re  _ not _ fake?”

She gave him a withering look, her laughter quickly forgotten. “Why would I wear fake teeth?”

Eli scoffed. “I don’t know. Aesthetic?”

Everything flickered.

_ Adam glared at her with a mix of fear and distrust. “Where did you get the fake teeth?” _

_ A frown flashed over her face, and her eyes darkened. “They are not fake.” _

_ There was a long, long period of thick silence. _

_ Corban scoffed. “Are you sure? I thought you liked that kind of aesthetic. Just like how you seem like knives.” _

_ Nick lurked behind them, his face cold. He said nothing. _

_ But he didn’t need to. _

Shaira jerked up with a gasp.

Eli and Thrawn were standing over her.

She blinked a few times, choking back on horror. “Why am I on the floor?”

Eli helped her forward into a crouch. “You blacked out.”

She thanked him, rubbing her pounding temples. Her face was scarily hot.

Behind her, she could feel Thrawn’s almost knowing gaze prickling on the back of her neck. She reminded herself that he could see into the infrared, but he wouldn’t know what had actually happened.

Surely he wouldn’t.

* * *

She was walking through a lengthy strip of corridor made with dark, polished metal. The lights were hard on her eyes, and she narrowed them in reflex. They adjusted to reveal strange symbols painted along the walls and unknown items strewn along the floor.

She stopped at an unfamiliar junction, faced with four choices.

_ Left, right, forward, or back? _

She spun around, looking down each corridor with a frown. She didn’t recognize the inscriptions. They flowed smoothly like cursive. Not Aurebesh.

The frown already on her face deepened, along with the panic collecting in her chest.

“Anyone here?” she called.

Her voice echoed down until it was lost in the quiet hum of the active ship.

She continued forwards. Everything looked the same.

No one answered her plea. She couldn’t feel anyone, no life nor breath disturbed the air but her own.

She broke into a run, the fear cutting harshly against the calm of the corridors.

Turn after turn flashed past her, and from the corner of her eye, she glimpsed something.

A shadow.

She whirled around, fists raised.

Nothing.

Someone whispered in her ear. She leapt back, her breathing sharp.

“Who is there?” she demanded.

She felt the brush of a presence over her skin.

Nothing.

Her breaths were becoming frantic, the smell of fear suffocating her in a dark blanket.

She sprinted. The lights brightened to a blur. There was no end to her path.

She kept running. Her breath was ragged. She felt fingers touch her shoulder gently and she lashed out behind her.

Her blow hit flesh.

Nick cried out.

She shrieked as he dissolved before her eyes.

And all around her, the scream echoed. It wove into the cracks in her thoughts, crawled into her ears, scraped down her spine.

She pressed her hands to her ears to block out the sound.

A hand grasped her arm and threw her into the wall.

The screams continued as she scrambled to get away. The Grand Inquisitor loomed over her, the Force ripping into her mind.

She thrust her arms out, an invisible wave rippling out into him. He flew back.

And then he was gone.

Her breaths rasped in her throat as a blaster pressed into her temple.

She ripped it from the person’s grasp to find no one behind her.

She backed into the wall as hands continued to pull at her.

Their presences tingled at her back. They whispered sharply in her ears.

_ We’ve come to pay you back. _

_ We’ve come to make you  _ suffer.

Two palms slammed her onto her back.

She squeezed her eyes shut.  _ No. No. Go away. You’re not real. _

“Look at me.”

The voice rang in her head.

_ You’re not real. Get away. _

“Look at me, Shaira!” the voice shouted, pressing her further into the wall.

She opened her eyes at hearing her real name.

Styled blonde hair and green eyes.

She sank further back, her throat tight.  _ No. No. _

“Afraid of me, coward?”

His chest dripped blood onto the metal floor. His eyes were pale. As pale as his skin.

“Answer me!”

Her reply was hoarse. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“Then how would you?” That voice was soft. Calculated. Horribly familiar.

Thrawn’s red eyes pinned her better than his hands could. They blazed with fire.

She didn’t hesitate. She shoved back at him with the Force.

He did not move.

“ _ How would you?” _ He spat.

She pushed harder, her mind burning with the effort. This time he moved, just slightly.

Shaira slammed her feet into his chest. He keeled back, and she darted forward, landing a hit at his neck.

He hit the ground with a cough, and her lightsaber flashed into existence.

She didn’t ask where it had come from.

The blood-red blade pointed at his throat. Her fear morphed into rage, and she registered her crystal soaking up the anger. “How would  _ you?” _

She dared to blink.

Thrawn was gone.

Jordan had replaced him.

And she couldn’t stop the blade as it sunk easily into his heart, charred flesh filling the air thickly with its stench.

She screamed in rage, his eyes rolling back in his head, but no sound echoed around her. Only the dripping of blood could be heard all through the corridor, staining her clothes bright red.

Shaira was hit in the side hard. Her face was pressed against a familiar floor.

Her back was drenched in sweat, not blood, and her chest vibrated as she attempted to breathe cleanly. Everything was still where it was, but she wasn’t.

She was splayed out across the floor. In a moment of panic, she pushed up from the floor. Her arms gave out.

She tried again, her movements growing frantic.  _ Have to get up. I have to get up. Jordan- _

The fog hadn’t cleared. She could have sworn she could still hear the screams echoing. The blood dripping.

“Allow me.”

He grasped her hand firmly and pulled her onto the bottom bed. As gently as he could, he pushed her back onto the mattress.

That voice whispered in her ear.  _ “How would you?” _

She was too exhausted to react, wheezing out a weak “thank you” as he lifted her limp legs onto the bed.

He said nothing, instead sliding a pillow under her head carefully.

She couldn’t meet his eyes and didn’t have the energy to search his mind. Pain and fear were the only things keeping her eyes wide open.

He did not comment on her abnormal temperature or wild eyes. She barely registered a damp towel being laid across her forehead.

She could hardly hear her own voice. The screams… “When-”

“It would be best if you focus on breathing.”

She complied without complaint, forcing air to go in and out of her lungs thickly. The tension in her chest took a long time to ease, her throat raw. Whether from shouting or simply terror, she did not know.

“Is Eli-”

“He is asleep. Breathe.”

“I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You need to work on taking orders.”

That earned a slight huff. “Sorry, _ Lieutenant.” _

He paused, and for a frightening moment, she thought she had gone too far.

To her relief, he snorted lightly. “You do not make a very good cadet.”

Her relief was short-lived as her chest turned ice cold. “What are you implying?”

“I will allow you to wonder.”

She felt an unwanted surge of anger burst in her mind, and she squashed it down. Now was not the time to do something like that. She had to bide her time and learn. She was no fool; Thrawn may be kind to her in certain ways, but there was more to it than that. It was Thrawn.

There had to be more to it.

She didn’t deserve real kindness.


	14. I Will Send You Only One Warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shaira is no longer running away. She's running ahead. The others just have to catch up.

**One Month, Three Weeks, and One Day Before Graduation**

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

Her next breath was another wheeze. “Not really. I was born with it.”

Eli peered at her through a frown. “You don’t want anything for it?”

“I’ll be good, thank you.” Her gaze darkened. “I’ve gone through worse.”

Eli winced. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

Shaira’s gaze softened, though the emptiness and the persistent wrongness never left. “It’s okay.”

There was a long period of silence, and Eli continued to try and stop his hands from wringing. She could see the tension lingering in his tight throat and taut stance.

She calmed the suspicion curling in her gut.

_ What I wouldn't give to be you. _

“Ask.”

He glanced up to her in a mix of guilt and caution, abandoning the attempt to control his hands. “I just wanted to ask, y’know… I don’t know much about you. You never talk about where you’re from or your family. I get it, Thrawn doesn’t either, but he’s Thrawn. You’re not an alien, so you should be from  _ somewhere _ in the known galaxy. I don’t even know what your native tongue or planet is.”

She let the quiet drag out, assuming Thrawn had likely manipulated him into becoming curious as to her details. Her background. _Her family._ It was true, he knew almost nothing. He had no right to know.

Neither did Thrawn.

Shaira watched him grow more uncomfortable, and just as she was about to dismiss his questions, she felt the touch of a presence. She heard Nick’s laugh, deep and raw, vibrating in her ears. And in the shadows cast by the cadets walking across the corridor lit by Coruscant’s afternoon sun, she thought she saw him, pushing through the cadets toward her. She touched her neck where the chain usually lay, feeling its void. “English.”

His tanned face snapped back to her, his gaze hesitant.

“My native tongue is English. I speak others, but that is the main one.”

“Oh,” he said slowly, still not quite believing she’d told him. “I didn’t think you’d tell me.”

The question was clear.  _ Why did you? _

A ghost of a faraway smile crossed her face, the missing weight of the pendant burning a hole in her chest. “You remind me of someone I used to know.”

* * *

Thrawn stared at the empty room. Eli was even more confused.

“She’s gone.”

Thrawn hissed, startling him. “I am aware.”

“Why would she leave?”

Thrawn paused. He had been pondering that for the past several minutes, but the only conclusion he could come to was  _ arrogant stupidity. _ So he settled with: “I am currently unsure.”

Colonel Yularen’s voice came from behind them. “I may have the answer.”

Thrawn and Eli turned to face him, waiting. Their precautionary stormtrooper escort remained stationary.

The Colonel gestured to the stormtroopers. “Leave us.”

They appeared as if they would retort, but soon obeyed. The doors slid shut behind them.

“Not long after she went missing, I received this.”

Thrawn read over the message on Yularen’s datapad.

GRAND ASSASSIN

Message Sent>15:59 STANDARD TIME

Message Received<16:00 STANDARD TIME

TRANSLATED FROM DROID BINARY

~Eyes are everywhere. Trust no one. The diamond moon will not miss twice. My second is being watched by both sides of the knife. Do not worry for her, worry for yourselves. Even now, your escort may not be who you think they are. When you reach the coordinates, tell the person in green ‘Quince paste and Camembert go well together’.~

Behind him, Eli stared. Colonel Yularen flashed him a warning glance, and the urgency in his eyes vanished.

“So she is waiting for us back at ISB headquarters?” Thrawn asked, his face betraying nothing.

“It seems so,” Yularen said, but his eyes said  _ No. No, she’s not, and we shouldn’t go back there either. _

Thrawn and Eli both nodded imperceptibly.

“You’ll want to see this too,” the Colonel said, making a few small movements on the datapad.

~If the Grand Assassin fears that we are being monitored, then it is imperative we find a place to lay low until Miss Or’lei reappears. It seems she knows more than we do, and knowing the Grand Assassin’s reputation, I would not have been sent this message if our lives were not in immediate danger. I have been sent coordinates and a file that you might find interesting. For now, I believe it best that we find a way to disappear. The coordinates are likely to help us do that.~

Thrawn’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he nodded again. He exchanged a subtle glance with Eli, and then they looked back to the Colonel.

Yularen’s eyes were dark, but nothing else betrayed anything. His tone was as normal as usual. “I think it best we get back to ISB headquarters as soon as possible. I was informed the team have had a breakthrough.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Thrawn stated calmly. “I would be interested to see what this discovery is.”

* * *

Far away, a man spat, his scarred fists clenched. “I thought you said no one else knew about this?”

The other man’s voice was edged with ice. “I did. But I warned you that you should have sent someone else. Did you think sending four people with ‘Orbula’ written all over them would be  _ stealthy? _ ”

The man with the scarred fists leapt around, his blaster drawn. “I knew you were a fragging traitor. I should have shot you when I had the chance.”

The other man drew his blaster smoothly. “And you’re a fool. I would never have sent four idiots after a human trained under the Grand Assassin.” _Who is cleverly the Grand Assassin also. Rather intelligent for a mere child._

“Maybe  _ you _ should have taken the operation, instead of hiding in the shadows like a coward!” He tightened a scarred hand on his blaster. “If I shoot you now, I lose nothing.”

The other snarled. “If I took the operation, the Grand Assassin would figure it out! I know many things you useless idiots don’t. Kill me, and you’ll be dead before you have the chance to find them out.”

A rich voice cut through their shouting. “Gentlemen, please.”

Upon seeing the voice’s owner, they both holstered their weapons immediately, but the air remained charged with rage.

“I apologize, ma’am,” the second man said to the green-skinned figure, his face smoothed over. “Reece has run into some… difficulties.”

The man with the scarred hands seethed.

“I know,” she said, her beady eyes examining the two men before her. “And so does my uncle.” Her harsh eyes met Reece’s. “So you better fix that mess before you become it.”

Reece swallowed hard, hesitating.

“Get to it!” she screeched, a long nail pointed at him. Both men flinched back. “Before I turn your skin into a jacket and sell it to the Hutts!"

Reece disappeared.

The woman turned to the other with a sickly sweet smile. “Now, I believe you have a solution?”

He grinned dangerously. “Yes. Is Jaym available?”

Her smile turned into a thin grimace. “The blonde? Rather boring, isn’t he?”

His grin disappeared. “He’s efficient, ma’am.”

“Very well,” she said, her hand flicking out in a dismissive gesture. “But know this: his failure will be yours if you don’t deliver your end of the deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah they are definitely going to need to catch up with what she has in mind.
> 
> Thrawn, sighing heavily in Thrass-style somewhere: 0_0
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
💙💙💙

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [DELETED SCENES - YE&WL and S,SOMG](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21307817) by [ILoveDragonsALot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ILoveDragonsALot/pseuds/ILoveDragonsALot)


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